 All right, well, good evening, everybody. I am Director Chaitlin Spencer, briefly chairing the DPW Commission for August 24th, 2022. Welcome, everybody, and welcome to the new commissioners that we have, Eliana Fox, Christamany. Welcome, we're glad to have you both. And I will be chairing the meeting until we complete the election of Board of Officers. So is there a motion to accept or amend the agenda? Motion to accept the agenda? I'll second the motion to accept the agenda. Okay, Commissioner Oberbe. I would like to actually amend the agenda to pull item F off of the consent agenda, the item about the 86 Oak Street parking spot. Great, I'm okay with the amendment. And is your suggestion to put it at 5.1 after the consent agenda? That would work great. Okay. Thank you. And is that friendly to Commissioner O'Neill-Vivanco? Yes. Okay, great. Any further comments? All right, all those in favor? Let's see, I guess I'm gonna go around the room given that, well, actually between animus, I think we're good. So all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. All those opposed? I hear a unanimous vote. So thank you very much, we have an agenda. So the first action item is election of chair, vice chair and secretary. This is an annual responsibility of the commission to elect officers. And I would accept any nominations from the floor at this time. I'd like to nominate Commissioner Hogan as chair again. Do you need a whole slate or just one at a time? It is your preference. Okay, because I was also gonna nominate Commissioner O'Neill-Vivanco as vice chair, but I had not gotten so far as clerk. Yes. Is my understanding that the commission has appreciated having staff. It does not need to be a commissioner. It can be a commissioner for clerk, but staff member Val Dusharm would be willing to fill that role as clerk if you are supportive of that. If I'm supportive of that, then I'll make the slate. Commissioner Hogan for chair, commissioner O'Neill-Vivanco for vice chair and city worker for DPW Val. Val Dusharm. Clerk. Okay, thank you for that nomination. Are there any other nominations? All right. Well, hearing none, is there any discussion before we go to a vote? All right. Those nominated are these friendly nominations? Free discussion. Yes, I would welcome the nomination and be happy to help as chair. Fellow commissioners are supported. Great. Commissioner O'Neill-Vivanco. Yes. Thank you, Jim. I would welcome the nomination and love to continue as vice chair. And Val's not here to sit. I know. In absentia. Yeah. See, you should show up. Great. Any further discussion? All right. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. All those opposed, are there any abstentions? Given it's unanimous, congratulations to Chair Hogan, vice chair O'Neill-Vivanco, and to our staff member, Val Ducharme. So, nice work. Congrats. All right. I'll turn it over to you, Chair Hogan. Thank you, the bad trash Spencer. Moving forward to the agenda, the public forum. For anyone interested in speaking in public forum, welcome you to sign up. Please introduce yourself and make sure we have your name on the sign-up sheet here. All right. I'll sign up for I say something. Hi, I'm Lori Essig. I live right over here on Lakeside, and we have a parking problem that has become exponentially worse with Hula being in the neighborhood. And I think one of the issues is that they charge for parking, and so many of the people who work there or play there use our neighborhood to park. And we have talked to them. They suggested that we try to get permit only parking. That was their solution. But I've been told by Philip that maybe that isn't the best solution. So we're really asking for help because my parking spot with my car in it, for instance, gets parked in two or three times a month, which is just also weird like why people do that, but they do. And I've gotten to be very good friends with parking enforcement, very nice woman there, but it's really untenable at this point. And we just like some help. And I'm here with my neighbor for all that. Thank you. Hello, Karen Dawson, another neighbor from Right Avenue, Central Ave. I've seen a lot of changes over the years. We're trying to take care of that northeast corner of Central and Right Avenue for many years since 84. And it's been pretty peaceful. And now I'm just trying to make my peace with really huge changes in the last couple of years. Obviously the St. John's Club is busier than it's been. And that's been a slow kind of a growth in the beach attendance is also something that's been discovered in recent times. And that's okay, you know, the folks come and they're there for a couple of hours and then they're gone, but the Hula Folks Park for eight or longer, eight hours, and they take up two spaces on my block. My building has three apartments and the building across. The street has four apartments and we have two spaces. So, you know, when there's contractors, visitors, guests, it's always a circus to try to save any parking for them. The bumbers and the electricians at 120, 150 bucks an hour. You don't want them to have to walk too far to their trucks for parts, as it adds up. So I am interested in doing something. I've always hated residential parking, to be honest. And I never thought I'd be here asking for something like that. There's another option that's would work just to give us some kind of a break. I did communicate with the Hula Folks. They said, they very quickly responded that they were well aware of the problem. They're working on it. Let's see, I guess they did suggest that we might try to get residents only parking. So I guess that's, I don't know, there's their best answer right now, but perhaps there's something else we could do. I don't know, it'll be open to ideas and to do. Thank you. Thank you. All right, is there anyone else interested in speaking public forum? And we're online. Yeah, for members of the public online, if you do wish to speak, please use the raise your hand feature on Zoom and we'll promote you over. This time there's no one else. Thank you. Thank you. You're on the band. Thanks for coming. All right, thank you for that. We'll close public forum and move forward to the consent agenda. Modified per our discussion on the agendas, we're pulling the Oak Street items. Is that correct? And I'm sorry, I've said a message saying that they couldn't hear me. So I'm wondering if I could just make that. Oh, yeah. Take that comment about you. For members of the public who may not have heard, we're in public comment. And if you did wish to speak now during public comment, please use the raise your hand feature on Zoom. And if not, the chair may allow more public comment later on during specific segments. And so as of now, still clear. All right, moving forward to the consent agenda, I would entertain motions for our modified consent agenda. Motion to accept the consent agenda. Thank you for that motion. Commissioner Barr. I'll second the motion to accept the modified consent agenda. Thank you. The motion and a second from Vice-Chair on Yavavako. Thank you for that. Is there any discussion around that motion? Right. Seeing none, we'll go to a vote then. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye for myself. Aye. Aye from Vice-Chair on Yavavako. Thank you. Any opposed? All right, consent agenda passes. We'll be forward to address the item that was taken off consent agenda this time. Welcome a brief staff introduction if you want to say anything about it, are we? Sure. Phillip Peterson, public works engineer. So this was one that's our engineering intern who's not here worked on. That's the 86 Oak Street 15 minute parking. So this should have been done at the same time that the 88 Oak Street 15 minute parking space was reallocated to no parking, which at the same time we put in a vehicle loading zone on Interveil Avenue to take care of the 15 minute parking. So this was kind of an oversight. So a little surprise that this is coming off the consent agenda, but happy to discuss it, of course. So obviously the situation out there we're well aware on Oak Street. Narrow Street is defined as any street that's 28 feet wide or less and on Oak Street in this area. Street's 25 feet wide. So it's extremely narrow, busy area of town. And so the situation there at 86 Oak Street is we have vehicles parking in the green belt. They also park on the sidewalk. We're kind of borrowing trouble a little bit. So it's creating a little bit of a hazard for all road users. So, and this came up because of a request from, I think it was, was it CHT or BHA? Rilling Housing? Yeah, CHT, Champlain Housing Trust was by their requests as they noticed that we did not fall through with removing that particular parking space. So they said, oh, hey, we should actually remove this parking space as well. Of course there's a concern that if we remove that parking resource, what will happen to the people that live there? It's a 15 minute parking space. So it's not a consistent parking space for folks, which is what's happening right now. There are several residents in the city of Burlington that folks cannot park in front of their homes. I know that there's a concern that the restaurant won't have grab and go food pickup right in front of the restaurant. There are several restaurants in the city of Burlington and do not have that. That's why we put in the vehicle loading zone on intervail to alleviate that. So we want to restore the green belt and make kind of the situation safer on Oak Street. So that's kind of a quick overview of that situation. Happy to answer questions. Okay, thank you. Bring it back to Commissioner's discussion at this time. Commissioner Overby, is there anything in particular you'd like to clarify here? Well, I just asked to have it looked at. I wasn't at the June meeting and I, but I was aware that the parking spot in front of the restaurant was removed and it's currently now is the little outdoor parklet. But the reason I was wanting to have it discuss is there, it seems like there's maybe needs to be something addressed in that whole stretch that relates to the issues of people trying to stop and pick up their menu items at the restaurant. And I had a conversation with the gentleman who lives in the house to the west of 86 and asked about, and he was, as we were on the phone, he was, there were basically four vehicles parked along the street, including two in that location or one or two and then two more. So there was like four cars trying to pick up their menu items over the lunch break. And so the reason that I wanted to have it discussed is that we've in the past had those sort of cutouts like the Scout and Company coffee shop on North Avenue which we put in a pullout to preserve a way for people to do the grab and go coffee at that spot. And I was wanting the public works department to consider that as an alternative that there is still some sort of spot there. I did talk with an engineer Peterson about it and he said that it's just not big enough. And that may be the case, but I am concerned and I know there's always going to be regardless of what's there, those cars are going to be parking there and they'll just be more in the main, in Oak Street regardless, even though the sign says no parking this side of the street. So I just was hoping that we could think of another creative way to preserve a grab and go spot for that particular business. If there's an option of a way to do that and that may or may not be something that the other commissioners would want to have happen and assessment of that or an absolute determination as an engineer Peterson explained to me is that it's not big enough but it's obviously been used that way. So that was my reason for wanting to have a discussion about it, obviously parking enforcement cannot do whatever. So there's going to be cars parking there. It's going to be an unsafe situation forever as long as there is that sort of a business there. And so we, it's just something that I thought should be addressed and maybe we should think about how we're going to deal with that. So that was why I wanted to have that discussion before we voted to remove that and not come up with another option for grab and go spot there. Okay. Thank you. Any other comments from commissioners? Vice chair on the block. Hey, can you hear me? Yes. Okay. Sorry, I got multi stuff here. So I think it's really important that we kind of reallocate that green space in especially in that neighborhood. I don't like the insidious nature of that kind of vehicles or have taken over the green space that's historic. It's kind of predates certainly my time on the commission. So that's my preference to kind of reallocate that space to green space. But I also in agreement with commissioner over be in wondering if there's a solution for that grab and go. Is there a pickup zone that could be on Intervale Avenue? So just around the corner from 80, is it 88 Oak Street? That would serve that purpose with adequate signage. So we did put in the vehicle loading zone on Intervale and that did happen in June. That was something that we took care of. And in terms of some kind of- Okay. In terms of some kind of like pull-in space, there are no trees, there just is not enough space. I mean, we could take a look at it, a closer look in terms of the engineering and the space and the design. But I mean, ultimately, I just, I don't see how we could. The driveways are right on top of each other and where we would put the curb. And I think you pointed out yourself, there's a lack of curb there and therefore folks are, they've been allowed to use those spaces for 15 minute parking. So it's like an invitation for cars to just park there. So then if we have the, which is what I thought, I remember choosing so long ago, about that loading zone that could be utilized for pickup. So what's the communication from the business to its customers about utilizing that space? And then what will be the enforcement from parking services on that kind of encroachment on Oak Street? Right. Well, once they have the regulations in place and this 15 minute space is reallocated to a no parking zone and we look at the funding and we can reestablish green belt, reestablish good curb then parking enforcement will enforce the rules. Right, because what we don't want, and I know we can't control this, but just kind of thinking of like the scenarios is, someone's just pulling in right into someone's driveway and leading their idling car and going to grab food. I mean, this is a situation that we have tried to resolve by having a loading zone and we need the business to work with the business to make sure that there's kind of clear communication for their customers location and access to that loading area for grab and go. I think that's, I don't say that's all we can do, but I think given this situation, this is the best we can do for right now until we have any more data once we reallocate that parking space to Greenway. Thank you. I'm going to commission over again, check with the others in the room here, commissioners. I was just kind of mentioned that I do believe the business did recently change their business model as well. So I believe they have moved away from sort of in-person dining to sort of more catering style meal pickup. So potentially less frequent than what was happening before when it wasn't in house dining establishment. It is an interesting situation. They're actually two, there's two restaurants that share the space. There's actually in the back folks that make tortillas from scratch. It's really cool business model that they have going there. And so we, they do have a permit to put in a parklet. So they do have, I think one restaurant does do catering and the other does have in space dining. Okay. Mr. Fox, Mr. Barr. Yeah, I would, I too, I might be there quite often. I often see the cars up on the green belt just parked there. So relocating it. I agree with vice chair of Ivanko that having clear communication, maybe even some signage in that location. Telling them that around the corner, there's some space and maybe some signage on that space right now. Is it just loading zone? I think vehicle and loading, loading could be changed to 15 minutes, put a 15 minute space there. And then you can still be able to unload and load. Yeah, or you can use a vehicle loading zone for just whatever. Up to 30 minutes. Yeah, you can up to 30 minutes. That's correct. That's all I have. Okay. Commissioner Overby to do another question. I was just going to make the observation. Well, I've spoke with the gentleman who owns the home to the west of 86. And even with that spot used for grab and go, people are using his driveway as a spot to stop and park. And so that he supported, he did not want to have that 15 minute spot changed because it will contribute to people parking in his driveway. And that's probably what it will happen. And again, like I said, they park along that full street up to the stop sign despite the fact there is a no parking this side. So that was a concern of his that he's going to now be the parking for, he's going to be the grab and go parking area for the restaurants. And I completely support, you know, Vice Chair O'Neill-Vavonka's suggestion, if there's a way that it's very clear that there are spots grab and go around the corner. But there, and so maybe again, the assessment of what is on both sides of intervail in that lock opposite, you know, that the loading zone was put on the, I guess what side is that the east side of intervail. And the west side is that there's, I think just normal parking. I don't know if that's got a 15 minute, we could put a 15 minute spot there because I think there's parking there as well. But I mean, maybe, you know, engineer Peterson, you may know, what is the parking on the west side of intervail and opposite the new loading zone? Right, so there's actually not enough space for a good parking there. There's a driveway. We actually put in a curb extension with ballards just to prevent folks from, is a little bit of a traffic calming feature, but also to prevent folks from blocking the driveway of the lady who lives on the corner there. So that was one thing that we had taken the initiative on. Oh, wait a quick, the 15 minute spot, pick up and go on the west side of intervail in that block between intervail and lock. I mean, between oak and lock. I think where we've put it on the west side's the most, it's the best candidate for a grab and go park. And the east side, right next to the first driveway, there's just not enough space for 15 minute parking there. So it may be just the signage will have to be improved. We can talk about that. I just, I think it'll, I think it will come up again when you will probably have potentially the resident that's whose driveway will be the de facto grab and go parking, which has been this way anyway already. So at the commission, it's the commission's decision, but I don't support it without having a little bit more option to figure it out where that grab and go should go. So thank you very much for listening to my comments about this. All right, thank you. Let's check and see if anyone wants to speak from the public on this item in the room around the phone. At this time, no one signed up. Sure, I would entertain a motion if anyone has one. I'll make a motion to accept staff's recommendation with clear signage. I will second. Second. We have a motion from Commissioner Barr, second from Commissioner Damiani. Thank you. Is there any discussion around that motion? All right. Let's go to a votes then. Vice Chair, O'Neill-Bavanco. Aye. Commissioner Overby. No. Commissioner Fox. Aye. Commissioner Barr. Aye. Commissioner Damiani. Aye. And an aye for myself. Motion passes five to one. Thank you. Thank you. Moving forward. Item six on our agenda, NBTV Walk Bike Progress Report. Welcome a presentation from Bike Walk Council. So this is a joint presentation from the Burlington Walk Bike Council. I'm, hi, I'm Eric Brooks from the Burlington Walk Bike Council. But Jonathan from Local Motion is actually doing the presentation. It was a joint project of both Local Motion and the Walk Bike Council. Okay, great. So we're looking at Jonathan's going to present and I'll do color commentary. Great. Hey folks, yeah, thanks, Eric, for the color commentary. Terry, I'm looking forward to that. Yeah, I'm Jonathan Weber. I think most of you know me. I'm the Complete Streets Program Manager of Local Motion. Here's talk about our five-year progress report on the engineering goals in Plan BTV Walk Bike. So the Walk Bike Plan was adopted five years ago. So we are at a point where we can evaluate progress towards those five-year goals. The plan proposed around 200 potential projects to be achieved over a 15-year period and 118 of those projects were aimed for completion within five years. A little bit about the report. This was pulled together with the help of a couple of really great interns. Jack Evans was an intern for us at Local Motion and then Victoria Piguery was an intern working with Space Engels Red and UVM. So I just want to shout those folks out for their work on this. We had data from City of Burlington, Walk Bike Council and us here at Local Motion. And our aim here is really to obviously just provide this progress evaluation and also to celebrate some of the positive improvements that we've made and also draw attention to some areas where we're lagging behind. So some key takeaways before we get into the slides. We've made some significant progress towards the five-year goals but about 30% of the projects that were aimed to be completed within five years have not been started. A lot of the projects had been partially completed compared to what was in the Plan B2B Walk Bike or in sort of the study for that specific project. Many of the low-hanging fruit bikeway projects, so I've got Cheros or painted bike lanes that have been complete but we're really lagging on implementing low stress bike infrastructure, protected bike lanes, separated paths where we're behind a new sidewalk construction and then we're missing some data and some evaluation to quantify progress towards some of the outcomes that were noted in the plan. So again, this is just evaluating the engineering or some of the engineering metrics in Plan B2B Walk Bike. There's a whole other section on policy and we are not talking about that section tonight. So real quick, the things highlighted in green are the specific things that we pulled out as items that we can evaluate. So we're not looking at, for example, crash reduction rates. What we're looking at are the things that the city has more control over in terms of construction, planning, so improving priority intersections by 2026, implementing 3.4 miles of new sidewalk, 28 miles of new bikeways and 65% of those bikeways being low stress, installing 100 bike parking spaces in the public right away, a high-capacity bike parking station and a bike-sharp program. So jumping right in, on intersection safety, there were 20 intersections identified and those represented about 80% of the crashes that occurred at intersections in the city between 2011 and 2015. Of those top 20 priority intersections that were identified for safety improvements in the plan, those improvements have been completed at five of those intersections. We've got partial improvements and nine ongoing study at five and then there's one intersection, Sheldon Road and Home Ave, where there's been no study, no sort of progress towards improvements. This is a map showing where those priority intersections are in the city and what the status is of those improvements. So one thing that jumps out, the Nuski app corridor got a lot of improvements but we didn't quite go all the way. That's some of those intersections that represents the fact that we did a road diet on that corridor, but there are further improvements to be made. There are not intersections in other parts of the city that were priority intersections, but there are intersection improvements planned in other parts of the city. We'll get to that in a little bit. So on bikeways, what we see is about 43% of projects that were aimed to be completed within five years have been completed. 20% are ongoing and 37% have sort of seen no progress. These statistics on this page do not include SHAROs or shared late markings. It is also worth mentioning that four projects were completed ahead of time that were not within the five year timeframe but were completed within the five year timeframe. So pulling out a couple of key stats, 17.2 miles of new bikeways, the goal of 28 by 2026 have been implemented. So if you look at that 17.2 number, we're pretty well on track, but we should mention that 8.6 of those 17.2 miles are shared lane markings. So again, we've tackled a lot of the low hanging fruit that was in the plant, a lot of the painted infrastructure, and what's left is some of the bigger lifts, I'm sure as DPW staff is aware. 8.5 miles of all current bikeways and low stress. So we're not so far off of this goal, we've got some catching up to do. So this is showing our bikeway improvement mileage, and this chart sort of shows you visually and you can see the uptick and the purple line, which represents shared lane markings or SHAROs, and then also the uptick in just painted regular bike lanes. There is a slight increase actually in shared use path. That's representing the Colchester Ave shared use path, although it doesn't look like there's an increase there actually is. But what you really see is those painted, that painted infrastructure is what we've been installing over the past five years for the most part. This is a look at the network. So on the far left, we've got the 2017 bicycle network, that's how it looked when the plan was adopted in the middle is what the plan proposed to have completed at this point where we are now. And then farthest to the right, you have the actual five year bike networks, that's sort of what it looks like right now. So what jumps out to me with this graphic is really the lack of protected infrastructure in the downtown. And it's worth mentioning the one street where there is protection infrastructure on Union, that has been pretty inconsistently installed, I would say. Yeah, I would say that that doesn't count as protective infrastructure. But thanks for that. It hasn't been protected for most of the time that since it was originally installed. Yes, thank you, that's more accurate. So physical parking spots, I think there have been some installed, but this is not saying that the city is tracking. I know there's some interest in doing some evaluation of bike parking within DPWs. That's something we're discussing. But we did install a high capacity bike parking station or UVM did. So this checks the box on that metric, although we would certainly really like to see a similar indoor facility installed closer to downtown. Greenlight bike share, as we all know, is currently on hold, unfortunately, but it was great to see a bike share implemented at least for a little while. And when it's re-implemented, one of the important things is to achieve a closer spacing of the stations to meet that sort of 1,000 foot goal between stations. So that really allows folks to have better predictability in terms of knowing that they'll be able to drop their bike off easily when they get to their destination and that they'll be able to find a bike easily. There's not been much new sidewalk construction. This is a 2026 goal, not a 2022 goal, but we were not at the halfway mark. But as we know, the city is reconstructing a great deal of sidewalk every year, which has been really great to see. So just sort of some overall progress, project progress. Again, 118 projects were proposed in five years. This is bikeways and log projects and intersections combined. We've got about 45% of those complete, 25% ongoing and 30% inactive. And again, some were completed ahead of time. One thing that jumps out at the end of this slide that you'll see in subsequent slides is that the new North End sticks out as an area of the city where there has not been much project completion. You also see some lag in the hill section and some gas in the North End, the South End. But on the positive, you do start to see some better connectivity forming in terms of the bikeway network. This is looking at intersection and crosswalk project completion specifically. What jumped out at me is that there are really two corridors where we're lagging behind. Those are primarily North Avenue. You see a lot of dormant projects there and then on Shelvern Road and Willard Street. We did consider the roundabout on Shelvern Road as complete for this under construction. Also notable, there weren't a ton of projects planned in the old North End, but it would be great to see the ones that were planned come to fruition and I know there's progress there. So overall progress, again, about half the projects in the five-year plan have been completed or partially completed about 25% and about half a quarter of the projects are still in progress for planning, 30% not been started yet. And some have been completed ahead of schedule. Again, those low-hangs for bikeway projects is really what we've been seeing put down. Sharrows, painted blank lands, not as much progress on a low-stress bike network. And a lot of projects have been partially completed compared to their original descriptions. Not a lot of sidewalk progress and the bike-share program needs to be restarted. I mentioned there were some gaps in evaluation. These are sort of mixed in with the plan's metrics where some outcomes. So one outcome was that stormwater runoff would be reduced by 80%. It doesn't sound like that's being monitored. I'm not sure how we would do that exactly. On mode-share, there are some ways to calculate mode-share but it's complicated by COVID since our most accurate representation mode-share comes from American Community Survey data, which is only for commuting. So that's gonna be skewed over the past couple of years. And then safety, there is of course crash data but it hasn't really been evaluated to our knowledge. So I'm a new stop-sharing, that's the report, and happy to take questions. Jonathan, there was stuff on your last slide there that you skipped over. Sure, yeah, yeah, fair enough. So yeah, we did identify that maintenance issues. These are things that are sort of outside of the plan. But it didn't really adequately address maintenance issues, which are certainly a concern for walking and biking facilities. Note that that's very relevant to the union street issue. And just note that concerns about on-street parking have limited or delayed a lot of the bikeway projects. And a lot of the projects in the five-year plan are intended to be expanded in the next 10 years. So if a project's satisfied the short-term alternative in its scoping study or the plan, we indicated that project is complete. A lot of those projects do have a long-term alternative. And so this is just noting that there's more progress to be made even in some of the areas where we're considering a project complete. And then just to make knowledge and stuff who contributed to the report. So I just want to re-emphasize the maintenance issue. I feel like that's been a major concern in particular with protected, the one little section of protected bike lane that we have, plus another even smaller one on Sherman Street. The maintenance team has not been able to prioritize that as in the past five years, since it was installed. So it has spent most of its time uninstalled or broken. And so I feel like we need to address that. The 15-year plan calls for a lot more protected bike lanes. And if we're going to have protected bike lanes, which I think we should have, we need to have a way of making sure they stay in place. We're not going to be any good if they fall apart after a year and aren't re-installed. I've been told for two years in a row that DPW was going to hire an outside contractor to maintain the Union Street bike lane. And it still hasn't happened as far as I know. So I would like to have that addressed. And also on the, just it's a gap in the plan that it doesn't out sidewalk maintenance as a priority. The city has obviously made sidewalk maintenance a priority, but I think the plan should reflect that and we should have some goals to improve. And I'll also say, as much as we've made a lot of progress, there's still a lot of crappy sidewalks out there that we need to fix. So those are the big maintenance issues from my perspective. I guess one other one is that the annual repainting schedule just takes forever. It takes, you know, things don't get painted sometimes until the end of the season. And just in time for them to be worn off during the winter again. So getting some of these markings repainted earlier, particularly crosswalks, which are some of the things that lag would be helpful. So I'll stop there. Yeah, thank you. I appreciate the energy that went into that presentation and the updates today. We are not seeking a vote. No, no, this is for information. So do you have any other questions for Jonathan or myself? We're happy to answer them or move on to Millgaard. Yeah, we'll, for a post to general, we have to commissioner discussion now and then see if there's other public comments on this item. Let's start with commissioner Damiani. I think I just had two questions. One in the graph about the bikeway improvement mileage is our protected bike lanes sort of just falling under the separated bike lane category in that graphic. I think they're in Bufford. They're in Bufford. Is that right, Jonathan? Separate bike lanes includes anything that's protected whether it's with a flex post or a green belts. Bufford is just paint. Okay. And then my follow-up question is, I think I heard you mentioned, Jonathan, that it is a five-year plan. I guess we're, like, calculated. Is it a five-year plan? It's a 15-year plan. Okay. We're just five years. But it had many five-year goals. Okay. Mr. Barr. Thanks. I don't have a lot of comments. I do know that biking in Burlington has improved, and I want to give a little bit of credit there, but it hasn't improved to the level that I thought it would by now. I know that money is probably a huge thing, finding employees to do the work. I know that when we tried to have a lot of the bike lanes repainted the last cycle, it was hard finding contractors to do the painting. So those, some people view as excuses. They're reasons I get it, but if we could put some more focus on that, it would help, because then more people would bike. So that's why I'm here. All right. Mr. Fox. Yeah, I have a quick question, Jonathan. I'm just wondering, is the presentation you gave the report or did the interns do an actual write-up? Is the presentation a summary? Because I would be curious to see kind of a little more in-depth on it would be cool. Yeah, this is the report, but I'm happy to provide some of the background data that went into some of the graphs and figures for this to bike up. Cool, thanks. Yeah, they did a great job. You guys all did on the maps and stuff, loved it. Oh, yeah, I will say, we couldn't have done this without those interns. Like they really did the bulk of the heavy lifting on putting the presentation together and compiling the data. No, it's good to hear. All right, the phone. Vice-Chair, Niva Vaco. Okay. Thanks, Jonathan. Thanks, Eric, for this update. I think, and I guess this is just like general comments and concerns certainly about the maintenance issues, like how to crack that nut, how to prioritize clearing the bike lane, especially that little sliver of protected bike lane on Union. And I don't know kind of how to crack that nut. You know, maybe some feedback from Chapin and his team, just even on communicating with the public about kind of where the kind of priority falls. If I know that that lane is not gonna be even touched until 8.45, at least I know that. So I think I'm looking for some short-term communication on the clearing of that, as well as maybe some long-term fixes. You talked about a mode share evaluation, Jonathan, that was sort of included in the first plan BTV but not evaluated, did I understand that? Yeah, so plan BTV, I'm recalling correctly, cites American Community Survey data for the sort of base mode share figures. And we can still access that data. The problem is that American Community Survey is only looking at transport commute to work behaviors for its transportation section. And we know of course those behaviors changed quite a lot during the pandemic. So there's a bit of a confounding variable in that data. I think as people's commutes sort of normalize, we'll have a better odds of using that data later on but right now I think it's probably pretty problematic. Okay, thanks. And I think if I kind of had my magic just wish list, when we look at our bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure, we have come a long way. We still have miles to go, no pun intended, to kind of continue and there is greater connectivity. But I'm glad that we're not settling for this, that we are still moving forward. But I think as we look at even related to mode share or shifting our mode, a conversation we also need to have and this probably is at the state level is really looking at mobility education, right? How residents, users engage with our infrastructure. We all we can kind of lock out our door but really understanding how to use bikes safely on our streets, how to interact with bikes and buses and so forth. Because also key to this is education piece that really can integrate users and residents more into the walk bike plan. So that's it, great work on the presentation. So happy that you have interns who are able to really help support this. That's it, thanks. All right, thank you. Commissioner Overby. I have first two questions and then I'll make a comment or so. What is the definition of a low stress bike way? What does that mean? Yeah, so in the plan there are specific routes that are identified as low stress bike ways. So for the purpose of this report, what we're really looking at is what percentage of those have been installed. A low stress bike way is generally determined based on the level of traffic stress on the street. So basically how scary it is, how scary it feels to be bicyclist on the street and then what the level of basically protection and separation is that's provided on the street. So a low stress bike way on North Winoosky Ave might look like a raised separated bike lane. Whereas if we were on route two out in Essex, it might look like a shared use path that's totally separate from the road one. So the term low stress relates to the amount of traffic on the road. So that you have to do different procedures in order to make it feel equally safe and comfortable. Is that what you're saying? Correct, yeah, it's based on the speed of the vehicles and the volume of the vehicles. Okay, so I believe for example, that the neighborhood greenways like the wiggle in the North End is considered low stress, is that? Yes. I'm just trying to figure out how you would define it. Yeah, I'm trying to figure out the definition because I can understand what it might feel like but I'm just not sure how you define it. So I think the answer you gave me is helpful. It's based on the traffic and the number of traffic and the speed, that kind of thing, whether it's low stress, whether the treatment provided for bicyclists provides low stress is relative in other words. So have you done anything with the main street intersections that are the crash locations that are gonna be involved in the main street changeover? I didn't see them in the maps where the dots were with the red, where the high crash locations are on main street with those intersections. I'm not sure, maybe I was not seeing the right part of the map, but what is happening with the report on that? Those high crash locations like South Winooski in Maine. Yeah, there have been partial improvements implemented, I think, along all the main street intersections as well as along all of Winooski out. I think the main street intersections all pretty much received curve extensions in the last five years. So those are improvements there but there are further improvements being planned as part of the main street, red streets projects. So those were considered like, I think they were like green on the dots of the map. So are they considered right now low stress? Well, the intersections don't really receive that low stress measurement. We consider them as partially complete in terms of their safety improvements. Okay, okay. I wanted to thank you for the clarifications on those. I think it's really hard for you to come up with a report like this. So I appreciate the effort to do the statistics and the data on it. And I just wanted to second Vice Chair O'Neill Vivanco's comment about the mobility education because I think we've gotten so much transition to everybody drives in and out of their driveway. And we don't realize that you can walk from the old North End into town very easily. So things like getting people to try things that are different, whether it's taking the bus or walking or taking their bicycle. So I think I totally second that comment about what the bike council should be doing to assist with that. I have to say that I've been on the commission probably too long and have seen efforts to do things to make the biking and walking safer and more comfortable. And I don't, my gut feeling is we're just not making very good progress. And so I'm sad about that. And I appreciate all the efforts that are being made. But so I appreciate your reporting on it, but I feel like we're really not, we're not being as progressive as many other communities are. And I'm just not sure exactly why that is, but I'd like to see us do better. So thank you very much for your report. All right, thank you. Couple comments on that. I'm sure certainly this is an ambitious plan that was laid out, but be ambitious in the best of times. And as we know, the last five years have not been the best of times, but I will certainly second the sentiment from Commissioner Barr and others that like a lot of those green circles there are hard fought and significant ones for various pockets of our city in places where the crossing distance is shorter. We'd love to, of course, have more things be green rather than partially green or yellow on those maps, right? There's a lot that goes into all these projects and it's sort of daunting when you're talking about numbers of projects and hundreds here, it's impressive to look back and say that yet we're hitting the mark on dozens and dozens of those along the way. I mean, certainly that said, the progress towards completing this plan I'm sure it's not as complete or satisfying as we would have hoped when we were celebrating getting this plan into print five years ago. And I'm sort of wondering out loud about what the opportunities are. We don't want to just knock on everybody if we're both short of these targets, but I'm thinking of things, some combination of course of staff energy, staff availability, money to complete, money to hire staff, money to complete projects, the political will to push projects forward. Those are all things that have been challenges at times and I think our opportunities for us to keep an eye on and welcome staff's perspective on their challenges and opportunities to wait staff to come in a minute here. So a couple other things in mind in terms of the opportunities are like sort of the mindset shifts here. I know a lot of just from what I've witnessed as a citizen on this commission is that a lot of staff energy goes into countless meetings and coordination work for the big projects, the big projects that are in the news. And those are important milestones that we've been making good progress toward as well. But along the way, a lot of these little intersections are the fixing our busted ballards, Union Street things are like flipping our attention as we have to focus in some ways. Just towards that end, while I'm thinking about the Union Street lanes, I see in traveling in places, what appears to me to be low-cost things that protect bike lanes. And I wonder, and we'll sort of challenge staff to look more into opportunities there. I know we've heard at times sort of trouble sourcing the plastic vertical ballards. But I've also still seen pictures in places where the Chinsy plastic ballards are sort of spaced by little sections of curb stuff. Like just like not like coming in with cement mixers, but just like getting little cement curb stuff to laying the birds so there's something more substantial to keep designated users of roads in their respective paths. Welcome and open minds among staff and sort of chasing things like that. Creativity and different types of materials that would help get some of the lower-cost wins along the way. Keep the energy and morale up while we're chasing these multi-year projects as well. Another sort of comment on the data. I'm curious about, I know this report spoke to crashes with serious injuries as a metric that's being targeted. I just says and don't have great visibility into data on crashes with serious injuries. What I do have from the VTRAN's crash query website are injuries. There's like you can query for crashes, you can query for crashes with injuries. And I think that's something worth keeping an eye on as well that data's there. Just for the record, that data has been largely flat over the last five years in terms of the number of crashes with injuries in Burlington from 2017, like 120, 124, 119, 92, 118 over the last five years of crashes with injuries to all types of road users. To people on foot and on bike, the number of crashes per year is likewise been about flat in the thirties each year. I don't, certainly it's safe to assume any crash from somebody outside of a motor vehicle with a motor vehicle. Minimum some bruising and some soreness, if not worse. I think things like that that are tracked from the police crash reports, they make their way into the agency transportation, this database will be something to sort of keep an eye on as well and certainly aspire to be closing looping. And I'm sure as we turn more of those circles at intersections to green in the upcoming years, we'll get there and those numbers will come down, which is a lot to see some tangible signs of movement in the right direction on those sort of outcome metrics as well. A couple other things in mind, I think in terms of, I think I, yeah, I think I know my points here. One last thing is there is an open source metric of bike network quality, the bicycle network analysis put together for bikes or something, but there, it's cool and it's something that I, I find really interesting because it scores not just the existence of say a protected bike lane or a bike lane or a share, but it scores how well the bike infrastructure is connecting people to key destinations in the community to hospitals, to schools, to doctors, to grocery stores, et cetera. And there are categories of it for sort of social equity components of it if neighbors or sort of neighbors with different mixes of socioeconomic statuses are making more progress than others for those metrics. All that stuff is sort of called out. It's a neatest open source tool. It sort of takes a bit of upkeep from the city to in the wiki based open street maps data that drives it sort of keep things up there. But it is an example like metric and it's hard to put like a number on all of these. That's why we have eight categories of metrics that this report just spoke to one. To that I'll add some ideas for a couple more and I will stop there. I'll pause and welcome any comments or reactions from staff at this time. And we don't have any like specific topics on agenda, but if you have any sort of reactions to the presentation you can share with the commission. Thanks so much to both the advocates who presented tonight and to the communication at the commission. I think we all can recognize that we are in a different place now than we were seven, 10 years ago. The level of support at the commission level for this type of work is markedly different. I think the level of support from the community is really also advanced from previous times. Together we have done a lot and I really appreciate the work that the interns and the advocates put together in this presentation. I would challenge any of us to find a plan in the city of Burlington that has been implemented as close to the goals as this plan has been. And Burlington has previous been littered with plans that have gone very, that have not gone far. And we are committed at the city. I think the commission is committed to implementing this plan. The advocates certainly are. The department is, and we're excited to continue to be a partner in your success. I think you outlined well a number of the successes. I certainly would outline the exciting projects that we have in queue. Yes, there haven't been a lot of new sidewalks because we always identified that would be related to us securing grants to construct those new sidewalks. We have had a couple of years where we did not receive those grants, but we have been persistent and we have now secured grants for Intervale Road Sidepath and Lake Street Extension just completed the Colchester Sidepath, Mansfield Avenue Sidepath. And we wrote letters of support to help South Burlington get the I-89 Tiger grant. And we were an active applicant in getting the recently awarded $24 million grant to reconstruct the Winooski Bridge to have bike and pedestrian facilities, quality facilities on both sides of the road. There is a lot coming down the pike and obviously Main Street, Great Streets and reconnecting our pine in St. Paul that were unfortunately ripped out the street grid 60 years ago thinking of urban renewal that we're now spending our time reconnecting. Staff is working hard. Yeah, I will say the one thing that I really appreciate about the presentation tonight is I think there's a lot of alignment in identifying the challenges. And there are I think opportunities for us to work together. The Street Maintenance Division that is responsible for maintaining much of this equipment has been at 17 FTEs for as long as folks here can remember. In that time, we've developed dozens of stormwater facilities that they're supposed to be maintaining as well, added new bike facilities on top of that and quick builds to maintain. And it is no surprise to me that we are unable to deliver the level of service that the public expects for those projects. And we were successful this year in getting two additional FTEs for the stormwater and wastewater ongoing maintenance challenges. It was an easier push at the council because it's funded largely by water resources, not the general fund, but we'd welcome working with the commission and the advocates on FY24, looking at our budget for Street Maintenance Workers. I think there's also alignment in the identification that staffing in terms of planning and our engineering to have that capacity needs to continue. Our two planners, those positions are currently vacant. We have to fill them quickly, but in terms of engineering support in past years, there was enough capital money for us to have consultant contracts to pull in additional resource to force multiply our work. We are not in that position currently in this budget and FY23 does not have that support. So having your efforts to build those things back in in future years would be great. I think together the future is bright, as to the bollard install. We really struggle on the narrow streets with the plowing challenges and the winter snow challenges to really well maintain these facilities, which is why precisely we're trying a new facility design on North Champlain with concrete separated and buffered bike lanes. So I am very pleased with that design and think it's gonna hold up much better and will be a good test case for future low stress installs on our streets. So I really just wanna thank the advocates here. This is not the end as was noted, there's a lot work to be done, but there's significant alignment along all of us. I think we'd all recognize that many projects have taken a lot more energy than we expected. You look at Winooski Avenue corridor, the amount of public meetings, public process around the parking and having adjust transition as we're implementing the bike lanes. That level of work, it was more than what was originally anticipated. The same thing happened on North Avenue. In the end, we've delivered projects, we'll continue to deliver, but the community's asked us to put more effort into process than I think we all originally identified. So thanks, this is great. Let's continue. Very good. With that, I'll open up for public comment on this item while we're on it. Chair Hogan, we've got one member of the public signed up for public comment. If there are any others, please use the raise your hand feature. Jason Stuffle, you're promoted over to talk. All right, hopefully you can hear me. We got you, thanks, welcome. Okay, great. Yeah, I'd like to thank Jonathan and Eric and everyone else who had input into reviewing the plan. I was involved with this as well as the ward one walk bike council representative. And I just took a couple of short notes. You know, I think one of the big things we always run into whenever we try to implement one of these plans on here is the parking aspect. There's always a lot of grievance over what to do with the local parking spaces. And I hope I'm not exactly sure how it goes forward, but to think of some more creative ideas like zone residential parking for the initial Colchester Ave study, we could prove that you could park all the cars on the side streets that are all dead ends. But the residential parking only allows you to do it per street. And so parking to this day still is on one side of the street in one area that leaves the nice network in our area very disconnected. The plan has approved for future implementation gets rid of that. But it doesn't exactly address where those cars go. But this is the same thing on Flynn Ave, on North Manuski Ave, a number of projects. So if we're gonna make any progress, we really have to think how to address where cars gonna be parked or to educate people that allowing this infrastructure to be implemented will allow for less cars to be in the area. So the stress on the, you know, parking won't be as much to definitely the maintenance issue. I always see it when the wintertime, I bike year round, the roads are clear immediately and all the roads are cleared in for the full lane, but bike and walk infrastructure lags behind because the equipment is much slower, even though the network is actually the same size or approximately the same size. So you really need to be able to staff up wintertime employees and equipment for that. If it's cleared in a reasonable manner, I see people often lagging 24 hours behind with C-click issues that their sidewalk hasn't been plowed, but I'd never seen a road not plowed for 24 hours. So, you know, I think that makes a big difference. In the same thing with like Colchester Ave side path, it was plowed with a sidewalk plow, not a big pickup truck. And it was only half of the path and after a while it got filled in. I put in an issue, eventually that got cleared. But if you build something like that, like a Mansfield Ave side path, a Colchester Ave side path, I would expect it to be clear all year. So you have to have the people to do that. So I know part of this is building it, but definitely maintaining it afterwards. We have to think about how to fund the staff appropriately and have the right people. Three, for the low stress, I would just say think about trying to bike around with a young child to get them to school and then think of something's low stress. I often have to take very out of my way routes or slow routes to keep myself from putting myself into a situation we call high stress with a young child and say a dump truck or whatever else going three feet away from you, unprotected. I always joke like I can dump my bike and jump into the sidewalk, but if I have a child on there, I cannot do that. And so my level of risk goes way up once I have another person on my bike. And very last thing, if we could get a one functional roundabout somewhere in the city that's high visibility, so people understand that so we could do that in the future. I think that's a big thing that's not really highlighted in this plan that will help people who are walking and biking be safer and slow down vehicles. But that's all I had. So thank you very much. And I thank everyone who put the work into it and for listening. All right, thank you. Anyone else? No one at this time. I'm not sure if a city engineer, Norm Baldwin wants to add any additional information, but if it's friendly to the chair, you may want to add some comment. Sure. Yeah, so I, Chapin's comments were spot on in terms of the talking points I was seeking to express. One of the things that we encounter sometimes is we try to make a bike lane fit within a space that just it's not really made for that space and it's not user friendly from all classes of users. And it really requires significant capital reinvestment, both moving curb and potentially moving utility poles, replanting trees, so on and so forth. So there's significant costs to go that. So we're making very constrained choices about how these facilities are developed. So that continues to be a challenge along with the commentary about parking. Parking seems to be always be the highest premium that we're encountering when we start having these public conversations, along with the fact that we're really transitioning our operational teams to maintain systems that aren't necessarily a resource in the same way they should be as we grow and expand these facilities. So Chapin mentioned that and we've pushed for those things, but we don't always get what we want when we first ask, it takes years of commitment to kind of continue to chase that. So these are things that we're doing, but unfortunately it takes significant amount of resource and money to transition from a street network that's devised for horse and buggies that went from horse and buggies to cars, now to horse, now to cars and bikes and other modes. So there's a lot to kind of make it fit within that constrained right away space. And a lot of things have to change and it takes money and time. Very true. All right. Seeing no other comments, any action on this item, but again, I've got my thanks to representatives from the bike law council and local motion. They're sharing this tonight and to everyone that contributed to it behind the scenes. I appreciate seeing all this compiled into one place. Thank you very much for having us. Yeah, sure. Forward to continuing the conversation. All right, it's all moving forward. I just said on our agenda, Rail Yard Enterprise Projects. Sit here. Come on. Take your pick. Or is anyone joining? No, we're all here. Sorry, one second. Cool stuff here. I'm really excited to have the team here with us tackling this ambitious multimodal project. We have a senior engineer, Corey Mims, public works engineer, Olivia Doris. We have our STAN Tech expert here, Greg Goyat. I think that is the team here, Norm. A city engineer, Baldwin has been very involved here as well. We gave this presentation last night to the Transportation Energy and Utilities Committee. Got some good feedback. We are on a fast timeline. We're looking for the city council to weigh in on a preferred alternative in September after a public meeting. We'll get into the detail here. So it's really important that you give us feedback tonight, but also in the coming weeks. As we really need that preferred alternative to start getting to the level of design detail that the public is seeking at this time. I'll turn it over to the team. Yeah, thank you, Chairman. As you indicated, Corey Mims, senior public works engineer here with the city and on project managing this, joined by Greg Goyat. He's with STAN Tech, our design consultant on this project who are working on this initial phase for the NEPA process. Olivia Doris here. She's also systeming a public works engineer with DPW and she's helping us take on this undertaking and Lauren Baldwin, obviously city engineer on call. So we are sitting here, we a little background to previously had been to the project team had been here to the commission to present an update on this project back in March of 2021. Since that time, we have moved forward and in the, sorry, the summer, yeah, in July we came and went and got an RFQ out and request qualifications to get a consultant on board to continue on this work in the fall we brought on STAN Tech to assist us in this project. And so since STAN Tech has been coming, has joined us, we've been going pretty fast in data collection in order to evaluate the alternatives that we had previously been identified in this supplemental Pell, which I actually am kind of getting ahead of my slides here to get, sorry, all right. So a little bit of more background. So some of you are aware, some of you may not be, this project has been going on for a little while in conception and discussion. And back, we had in 2016, scoping study was completed, looking at this corridor of the city and kind of identifying what might be an option to provide improvements that the city could definitely use. As the project went on in 2017, I believe it was council, I'd kind of agreed to move forward with a supplemental scoping of the alternatives which narrowed down a selection from, I don't have the exact number, there was several alternative options down to a three option selection. From that, which was released in 2020, the supplemental scoping study, this we have started as the next phase, which is looking at those three alternatives plus a no build option and comparing those underneath the NEPA lens to look for a preferred alternative of those potential four options that we would then submit in our NEPA process. And so ultimately we're here tonight to discuss with you a little bit of what we've come across, what we're looking at and what is looking to be the preferred alternative of those four options and look for any feedback that you may have. So this is the project corridor, as we're familiar, what we're focusing on here is between Pine Street, west to Lake Champlain, the Northern Limits being King Street, Southern Limits being the barge canal. So of this and through the Pell, the purpose in need, so what we're looking for in this project, we're looking to support economic development in the area, we're looking for improved livability for the surrounding communities. We're also looking to enhance the multimodal facet of transportation in that corridor, as we know, biking up. Pine Street is not necessarily the best one that's busy traffic and potential option alternative may be very preferred as you'll see, and we've discussed a little bit further in those alternative options. And also to improve intermodal connections. So this would help facilitate traffic flows and through traffic studies we would look at how this could improve intersection, transportation through the intersections Pine Street and Maple King Main Street and how this might help facilitate better flow. Again on the project timeline, this is kind of what I was discussing previously. Initially this discussion had started with the initial report back in 2012, and then the Pell study was released in 2016. A lot of investigation and a lot of research had been done at that point in time. This doesn't identify, but in 2017 was when the supplemental scoping was discussed and began its process of further data collection. And then in 2020 was when supplemental scoping study was released. Now we are sitting here at the end of 2021 when we brought on StanTech we're looking at continuing this progress or to continue this project and developing that alternative further to the preferred alternative. This is one of many projects in the south end as everyone's aware. This was presented previously, both the Duke, I believe here at the commission and to council, the South End Destruction Coordination Plan. What this, as you see, there's a number of projects and infrastructure improvements that are being planned or completed or in progress in this area. And this was the city's attempt to really take into consideration the concerns of the neighborhoods with being inundated with too many construction projects at a one time. So this was the efforts that were made to span the construction over the next several years in order to minimize any one single particular impact for that area. And so we have what's been completed. You have the class one paving, which is actually still underway. Also, it's the two year process. You have the V-Trans Amtrak, which has been completed. And as everyone knows, it's now up and running, which we're all pretty excited about. Sheldon Street Roundabout, which is well underway as well. And it is in a very good position to be ahead of schedule coming just before winter. So I believe my understanding is it's looking to have potentially a functional operation prior to winter season. So, and that will be finishing in 2023. We have the initial construction contract for the Champlain Parkway Project, which is currently under construction. That one's planned to be extended to October 2024 completion. That section is between Home Avenue up to Lakeside, Lakeside over to Pine, and then the Pine Street improvements from Lakeside up to Kilburn. And so that would be looking to be completed by October 2024. Then we have on here the Main Street Great Streets, which is underway in the design phase, looking to, you know, if things stay on schedule, to be able to potentially get a construction start in 2023. And then we have this project, which is underway in the NEPA process, where we're working to get those documentation put together for our goal, pending a selection of a preferred alternative, and hopefully council approval in the near term for that alternative selection would be to submit the documentation in October, and officially present to Federal Highway, Federal Highway to preferred alternative selection along with that documentation. And then the final construction contract for the Champlain Parkway would look to be following in the close suit of both construction for this project, as well as that final construction contract. So these are the three alternatives that were identified from the supplemental Pell as would require further investigation as to select the preferred alternative. Now these are just the general connection layout and the specific design details are what is then determined as you proceed into the next phase of this design process. So first is making the selection of the alternative, then from there you really start nailing down those individual details of exact right-of-way limits, locations of facilities, and items such as that. So as we can see the three alternatives here, and this obviously we didn't show a no-build situation, but the no-build would be the fourth option that is being considered in this process. The first alternative, the alternative 1B, is the more simple design. It is a connection of Battery Street to Pine Street with a connection at South Champlain that looks to kind of extend south and connect in between the Curtis Lumber and the former street department parcel. This at this juncture is what is anticipated to be the preferred alternative due to a number of reasons, and we'll get to those here in a minute. Alternative 2 is a little bit more robust in its design. It creates more of a grid street network. It has multiple connections to Pine Street. This one, again, as it goes between Battery, connects to South Champlain, connects to Pine Street. It also includes significantly more impacts to those parcels as it would effectively go through the Curtis Lumber building, very close proximity to the former street department building, and then a new connection there closer to the barge canal. Third option, alternative 5B, again, is very similar to 2. It eliminates the Curtis Lumber connection, and there's two connections to the south for that. In our review of these streets or these alternatives, we looked at a number of things. We look at right-of-way impacts for all these alternatives. We looked at the historic preservation and historic architecture or historic items in the vicinity of the project that would be impacted in its design and its construction. We looked at the environmental impacts in the area, as well as the costs for these separate alternatives. All of these impacts were considered and have been reviewed and are weighed against each other in making that selection of the preferred alternative. The shortest way to say this right now is that the impacts on 2 and 5B, environmentally speaking, there's gonna be contaminated soils in all three alternatives, the barge canals and the vicinity. The rail yard's been operation there for a very long time. We know the soils there are gonna have to be worked and that is anticipated. What you end up happening is with the alternative 2 and 5B, you are extending the roadway network closer to the barge canal, which obviously we know is a super fun site and is going to incur significantly more work in order to be remediated and taken care of to be able to construct the roadway network. That in itself is a very big difference between alternative 1B and the 2 and 5B options. In addition to that, with any roadway connection, the more roadway work you have, the more paving, the more construction, increase costs. So not only do you have the significant increase cost of additional soils potentially to be remediated, you also have the additional construction cost just for a larger infrastructure installation. So as those traffic study information has been gathered, right-of-way impacts historic preservation. So with all those considered, this is kind of what's leading us to the 1B alternative being considered the preferred alternative. So looking closer at the 1B alternative, as it stands currently, we have been in close communication. Since bringing StandTech on, they've done research in the existing facilities. They have looked at property rights to truly sure up the right-of-way boundaries. We've looked at the historic buildings in that area and historic structures, such as the roundhouse, which is in the rail yard. And you can kind of see the little outline on the top portion of this page that is west of the roadway alignment. So in looking at the buildings, looking at the impacts, in speaking with all the, we've had multiple communications with the stakeholders and property owners in this area, as we've kind of gone through this process and we're still continuing to work with them to discuss these, ultimately, we started to get a little of the design details with them and just how the impacts might affect them and their property and their operations. With all these considerations, this has been just an initial mockup of kind of what we're looking at as far as 1B alternative. Again, nothing is set in stone here, but this is just to give a better understanding of what sort of improvements and what is gonna be installed in this design. What we can show here is any design that we do is going to require VRS and state participation as there is an existing track that runs through the battery street right away that is gonna have to be relocated. So there's been numerous conversations and conversations are still going with VRS regarding this and we've had actually really good conversations with them and that so far when we've talked to them about this alignment, they have been supportive of this. So that being said, that is a big portion of, and this section and these discussions are consistent for each of the three alternatives as all three of them still have to make this battery street connection. And so this is really the key focal point of all three designs, they all carry the same section. So in that, we have come across in our conversations is that we are looking, I apologize, I don't know if I can zoom in on this. Oh, sweet, I can't, all right, so this is benefit. All right, so we were looking that with the historic buildings, the independent block building we have here, we have the roundhouse here considered 4F, or the 4F considerations when it comes to historic preservation. Because this project is federally funded, there are, and we're working through the new process, there are considerations that need to be made for those historic facilities. This, as we have it designed now, would minimize the impacts of the 4F. So we are looking to not have any impacts to the roundhouse and we would be looking at a partial taking of the independent block building in order to facilitate the roadway cross section. In this vicinity of these, of this roadway alignment. Again, this is a standard Burlington street. It's going to be a 25 mile an hour roadway. We're going to have signalized intersections anticipated at South Champlain. You have the existing battery and there is going to be the intersection connection at Pine Street. There's discussion and we have on the next slide some alternatives. It's being, it's not finalized as to how that connection will be made. And that is something that will be further investigated and looked into in the next phase once a preferred alternative has been selected. For this infrastructure in our discussions, we have concluded that we'd look to install the shared use path on the eastern side of the roadway. This, again, is a facility that would be, you know, for, you know, it's a shared use path. We are looking to have, sorry, down on this portion of it, we are re-continuation of the shared use path that would be built on Pine Street. They would be looked at in one manner or another cross and then continue on the north or eastern side of the new roadway alignment. So with the considerations for this project, there has been identified a bottleneck in this section as well. We do not have the ability at this phase to increase the width of the right of way as much as we would like in order to accommodate all desired design aspects. In that being, in that, we understand that there is not in this design any facilities on the south or west side of the roadway. But that is also the rail system currently uses that track for ballast loading that is a rock transport operation that can sometimes go array a little bit and there can be some spillage over those cars. And it was clear from discussions with the VRS that they did not want to see any facilities on that side as they, you know, have concerns with, you know, any sort of spilling and the safety of what if that would mean. I have a cross section that we'll get to in a minute that kind of shows a mock-up of what that would look like. But that was one of the considerations. We have done in this alignment as well a minimal of the impacts as possible to the property owners on the north or eastern side of this in this alignment. We're looking at avoidance of buildings such as the Rambler building, back parking at 47 Maple and maintaining the portion of the independent block building that has been identified as historic. And we have been in close conversation with those property owners and we still are continuing to be in conversations. Looking at that, so as I just mentioned, you know there's been some intersection controls. These are concept alternatives that we've been looking at in our work. The first on the left being a one lane roundabout being installed at Pine Street to make that connection. The second option we've been looking at is the signalized T intersection. And the third intersection is a signalized Y intersection. It has been found that traffic studies have been done on these as well and kind of reviewed to see the effectiveness and the amount of traffic that is anticipated to be diverted to the new roadway through each of these options. And some of them have a little bit I'll leave Greg talk a little bit more about that. Sure, yeah. Yeah, so regardless of the intersection option chosen at Pine Street, much of the traffic will be diverted to the new RDP roadway that currently uses Pine Street north of the intersection here. So there'll be a significant portion of traffic diverted to the new roadway. Each intersection option comes with its pros and cons. The roundabout is certainly a slow speed intersection. Any crash that happens in a roundabout certainly happens at a much lower speed. They tend to be deflecting type crashes, not broadside or head-on collisions that you might encounter at a traffic signal. It definitely takes up a little more space to build the roundabout around the intersection. It certainly can accommodate bicycles and pedestrians through shared use-path infrastructure around the intersection. Bicyclists can choose to, the more bold bicyclists can choose to just drive, bike right through the intersection as well. So there are options there. In terms of the signalized T-intersection, you can see the new roadway would tee into Pine Street. Pine Street would continue in that north-south direction there at the intersection. It's kind of more of a continuation of Pine Street. It will probably divert, it will divert less traffic towards the new roadway than the signalized Y or the roundabout intersection, but it'll still divert a significant amount of traffic. It's a much smaller footprint at the intersection there. And, you know, there's still access on the east side of the road that we have to consider as well for students to sitar in the post office and things of that nature. The signalized Y would tee Pine Street into the new roadway. It has the benefit over the signalized T and that more traffic would be diverted. But again, all three intersection options would divert a significant amount of traffic towards the new roadway. So we can, that's probably enough of an overview for now. We can save it for questions up there. Thanks. So as I mentioned, so this is kind of just a typical section that we're looking at for the new roadway section between Pine Street and South Champlain. As you see the five foot sidewalk, we have a five and a half foot green belt. We have a 26 foot roadway shoulder to shoulder with another five and a half foot green belt and a 10 foot shared use path. As we move over to the narrowing section that I had talked about, this gets slightly reduced in the infrastructure. So we have the rail yard tracks, the horn track that is currently there. With discussions of the rail yard, they require a 10 foot rail access on the roadway side of their tracks. There's discussion regarding a a rail yard security fence installation potential. And then you have your roadway alignment. Again, the 26 foot curb to curb and a five and a half foot green belt. And then we narrowing down to an eight foot shared use path. So where we stand today as we're coming to you to talk to you, give you an update as to where the project stands, what is looking to be likely the preferred alternative based upon the information that's been gathered so far. And we're looking to kind of get your input feedback on this as we look to move to hopefully discuss this with council in the near future. And so other activities that we have, we do have a large public meeting coming up to discuss the alternatives, information gathered to date and discuss it to see what their input and their feedback might be on, again, similar presentation to as what I am presenting here today and we also presented last night to the two, we had again, as you said, our hope is to speak to council. It'd be nice if we get there on September 19th and then we'd look to if we get their consensus on a selection of a preferred alternative, finalize our documentation to be able to submit to the EA formally in October. There, we still do have additional information that needs to be gathered and compiled to finalize that port and that is still being worked on at this time. Again, once that's done, we'd look to go into the next phase, we should be working further on the design details. Again, we'd be doing more utility survey work, right-of-way acquisition discussions would be truly commencing at that point once the selected alternative has been approved. So that is out of the next steps. So yeah, really at this point, I'm just looking to see if there's any questions, comments from yourselves. Great, yeah, thanks so much for the presentation. Let's start on the phone with this one. Commissioner Overby. I'm very excited to see this actually moving forward. It's been discussed like you notice your timeline from 2012 and I've been following it for that long as well. I don't have a huge amount of questions other than I want you to answer them. I've made notes of questions and then you answered them in your presentation. But I did want to say that I'm definitely in support of a roundabout connection between Pine and the new segment of Battery Street. And obviously everybody on the other commissioners are aware of that, but I think your comment about the fact that it would facilitate more traffic being directed and diverted onto the new segment is a piece of information that I hadn't really thought about comparing the signalized T intersection and the Y intersection. I have complete supporter of the safety of roundabouts because of the fact of the slowing down and the eye contact among all people trying to get through that. And since there will be the requirement of bicyclists and pedestrians crossing from the shared youth path on the one side and getting to the other side to be going down the West side of Pine Street, I really think that's the solution that should take place at that intersection. So I think I'm very happy to see it moving forward. You would answer the question about the archeological sites because that was one of the questions under the older maps. Those were sort of in a very challenging location. So I don't have any other questions other than to highly support the, I think it's a great plan. I think that's the way to go. I want to be the plan and I would highly support the roundabout at that intersection. And I just think that's going to be the safest alternative for everybody and also the fact of that extra encouragement of people that I think people are going to be coming in on that parkway and they're going to want to get to downtown and we don't want them going into the Pines, the, you know, Maple King neighborhood if we can avoid that. So good job. Thank you very much. All right, thank you. Vice-Chair on the Ivanka. Okay, thanks folks for the presentation. And I agree with commissioner Overby. I wrote down questions and then you went ahead and answered them in the presentation. I too support the version with the roundabout exactly for the same reasons of slowing down the traffic and that it can accommodate cyclists. So I think moving forward with 1B with the roundabout version. I don't know that 1B point something would be great. A question I do have and I just, I remember from a while ago. What about access for the businesses on the corner of Maple and Battery? I remember the dive shop was talking about access for loading and I know you did outreach but I would love to hear that those businesses have been contacted and that there are solutions for them to be able to, you know, have their visitors to their shops and also necessary deliveries with big trucks, whatever. Yes, we've been in very, I feel we've been in some very good conversations with them as of late. Definitely they do have concerns. We have in the image that was shown identified an ability to remain access to their loading dock for that dive shop as well as we're in discussions as to how the parking would be managed on the roadway to continue to allow easier access for that business there on that corner. They have voiced concerns with the project as this changes the infrastructure and the usage of that area. They have of the alternatives identified that this would be the one that they feel has the best potential. However, they are not at a point full disclosure. They are not at a point right now to fully support this project at this time. So we are still in contact with them and we will be continuing to discuss this further with them as we move forward. Okay, thank you. I mean, you stated one of the goals of economic development. So I hope that you keep those conversations alive and work to find a solution that we can continue to support those businesses while moving forward with this project. Thank you, Corey. All right, thank you. Commissioner Fox. Oh, wait, Norm was looking to add. Oh, sorry, I'm missing it. Yeah, so I was just gonna add to what Corey was saying about our conversations with the businesses. A few things with the diving shop that was important to them. One is that they have space for the customers who carry a lot of heavy gear. And I think they need about four spaces. Then we've also talked to Jacob Albee about his tenants and the use needed for eight spaces or something that effect. In addition, what the future is with Perkins Pier parking lot and the challenge that we expressed to them that there is that potential of the wastewater treatment plant expanding its footprint, taking some of that space, but that we're gonna have conversations with parks about that. So we're hearing all the things that they're concerned about. One of the things they're concerned about is what their level of compensation would be as it relates to diminished value of property and how they deal with tenants. And meantime, while this public conversation is ongoing is that could affect that relationship with their tenants. So we're trying to figure out some of those answers from the federal highway process. So it's a work in progress as we move forward, but we're trying to get them answers to those important questions. Thank you. Great, thanks for that clarification. Back to the question, Christopher Fox. Thanks for the presentation, it was super interesting. I also had questions that I wrote down that you answered. One of them was about the barge canal being a super fun site and wanting to disturb or disturb that as little as possible. And for that reason, among many others, 1B definitely seems like the best alternative for the project. I think that was my big comment. So I'll leave it with that. Thank you, Commissioner Barr. Sure, thanks. I too had a question. So very good presentation. You really covered a lot of great detail there. On the Pine Street intersection, I tend to support the roundabout, but I guess I would ask if the intent of this project is to divert traffic. It looks to me like that kind of why intersection would be more conducive to that because you have to go that way and you have to physically take a right to go back on the Pine Street. But having said that, I think signage could mitigate that so that they do continue forward to battery. So I too am also a favor of the roundabout in that area. And I like the bike infrastructure. It's tough that it's gonna be, I'd like to get a little bit bigger than eight feet. Maybe you can squeeze from the green belt. We're looking for plantings maybe and just take two feet, maybe 10 again, but I know. Oh, looks good. Looks great. All right, Commissioner Damiani. In the two alternatives outside of the sort of preferred one that sort of create the grid street network, does the, I know it's also the super fun sites. We don't necessarily want to disturb that, but does the current or any sort of proposed zoning that the city has provide for that area to be or is a multi-use or mixed use district? I don't know what that current, that area is currently zone four, but I can't speak to the specific zone like that. Right, what I would offer is that there is redevelopment potential some in that existing project area, but we are also taking a broader look at economic development along Pine Street where there are multiple properties where redevelopment could be significant. And as you know, Pine Street has some traffic constraints, particularly at the Maple Street intersection. So this piece of infrastructure in our minds really unlocks a lot of the south end for redevelopment to achieve mixed use multimodal goals by solving one of the key bottlenecks that this community has struggled with for decades. My only other comment is to second what Commissioner Barr said and sort of if we can squeeze any space on the shared use path. Yeah, and just to be clear there, that is just what we're first run looking at. Again, depending when we get to the right of way phase and railway acquisition, things could change a little bit, a little bit of additional green belt could shrink, a little bit of extra acquisition may occur in order to get that extra room in order to maintain that 10 foot. So we're looking at that and that definitely is one of the things that we've been hearing and we will definitely be looking into that as far as what options we really can do to provide referral design. Awesome, thank you. All right. Just want to clarify, I see the shared use path crossing the street twice, which is not preferred. Is that a result of the rock operation from the railway? Yes, in the discussions with the BRS, it was determined that any facility on that side was almost a non-starter for them as far as their support of a project. So in that consideration, that was where the crossing was to occur. You're gonna put a road facility there. Road, correct, yes. Pedestrian facilities, that was something that they just did not want to entertain. And I'll just clarify as well. With the road facility, there will be some offset from the horn track. So there's gonna be a 10 foot offset from the horn track and that loading operation. If we were going to, which is the minimum that BRS would require in order to have their operations, they need truck access between the track and the new roadway facility, including any sidewalks or recreation paths or shared use paths that would be installed. So while we feel comfortable with where the road is in location to the ballast loading, putting the path on that side would get into that 10 foot space and would be too close to that ballast loading facility plus for a Montreal system it wouldn't leave them enough operating room to do their operations for the ballast. So it really is kind of threading a needle between Vermont rail system operation and trying to minimize the impacts to the properties on the other side of the road and have a safe roadway for bicyclists, pedestrians, motorists. The other thing to take into consideration with the shared use path is the amount of truck traffic that goes in and out of that rail yard is pretty phenomenal. We don't see it because there's no roadway there today but if you go and sit out there and just witness the operation out there, there's a lot of heavy truck traffic and to put the bicycle facility in conflict with the trucks leaving the rail yard is not preferred. We feel like having the shared use path on the other side of the road would be a safe road. Could you clarify that point like where? So today I gather that truck traffic is entering from battery? Yeah, it's either entering from battery or self-shamping. Oh, gotcha, okay. And in the future, also be entering from battery or self-shamping? Yes. Is there a judge or specialty look like you? I think the one piece I'd add just for on the positive side of locating the facility on that east side, is it there maybe redevelopment in the future? There will very likely not be redevelopment of the rail yard for a long period of time. My understanding is the lease that the rail yard has, the VRS has is through 2054 and there is much more opportunity to activate the street on the eastern side. So having an actual bike and pedestrian access to the frontage of those properties allows a lot more opportunity for redevelopment and pedestrian scale activity and activation. I agree with the chair Hogan that from a directness standpoint that this is not the most direct point from A to B but given the constraints and given the activation opportunities I think it is a reasonable proposal. Thank you for putting the right spin on there. It's the directness and also the number of conflicts. It's almost an awesome post-rest connection from here basically to the waterfront. But you got to cross this. Is there a risk of like cars windshields getting dinged from this rock operation? I mean, do you have a sense of like how many hours per day they're dumping rocks there? I don't really have a sense of the hours per day. No, I mean, it depends on, in the conversation it happens at different times. It's not a set schedule situation. There are the current tenants in the area that have identified that they have seen some parked cars in the vicinity be damaged by it with some stray rocks but we don't have that data but that data is something we'd be looking to get more of as we continue. Yeah, and these cars are currently parked immediately adjacent to the track today because there is no further or no fat. Okay. Yeah, thank you for that. And just to clarify, my first read when you were first going through it, I was getting the sense that the signalized why was expected to successfully divert more traffic to this new road section. I got the sense from Commissioner Overby that her read was different than that that the roundabout would successfully divert more traffic. Could you clarify, do you have a sense of the level of, I understand that like, right, this is gonna be the more desired path to the battery street from Pine regardless but do you have a sense of like, which intersection may have a greater tendency to steer people that way? Yeah, the signalized why will have the most potential to divert the most amount of traffic to the new roadway with the signalized T having the least amount of traffic diverted with the roundabout in between. Thank you. With all of them decreasing traffic in King and Maple over what exists today. Yeah, makes sense given like, yeah, the geometry of the signalized wise going straight there. Okay, I guess one last thing we talked a lot about the cost and I think the significantly increased costing complexity of building out more of the grid network closer to the barge canal and I think Commissioner Damiana touched on as well as far as like the rezoning and economic development potential there. Does that like come up in the economic evaluation? Well, I mean, are you looking at, because if we had new street grid there, that's could be once the dust has cleared a significant driver for new economic potential for the signalized. Yeah, I think the challenge ultimately is that grid network doesn't necessarily open up additional property to development that could not be developed with alternative 1B that those parcels already have frontage to key sections of the city street grid. So while they may provide additional frontage, that marginal value in my mind is not significantly greater because all properties currently have good access to public right of way and with the addition of the Ralliard Enterprise Project, we take a much larger view of the redevelopment potential far beyond the frontage to the larger south end, which we know is a vibrant and vital part of the city. Yeah. Thank you for that. Great, yeah, thanks so much for the presentation. Yeah, I'm with you here on this alternative 1B and the signalized why and it seems like it's most promising way to go. And I trust you're covering all the bases in your work. We did, if you wanna bring up the slide, we did have a proposed option for a resolution if you wanted to consider that. We've noticed this as a potential action item. If the commission wants to indicate its support for alternative 1B, that is an option for you. This evening it's not required, but when we go into the public meetings or to the council, their understanding of kind of the commission's perspective may be helpful. Right, thanks. I guess before we get there, let's check and see if there's, I do have one more. Yeah, please. I just wanted to ask to, it's not just about the shared path being wider, I like that idea, but instead of a fence, I'm trying to think of things that would stop dust and traffic and maybe the unsightly scenery of piles of rock if there could be like a hedge or something, if that could just be something that we consider, because that does catch a lot more. I've catch on my side, which there used to be a lot of trucks on Chase Lane from the Toronto Fuel, and that stopped all the dust from coming into my yard. So just an idea, unsightly, although it'd be nice if the fence was there and some painted a mirror line or something, but yeah. Anyway, sorry. That's a good thought. Okay, thank you for that. Thank you for that. Suggested language as well, if the commission's so inclined, let's check and see if there's anyone interested in speaking on public comment. Sarah, please. Yeah, why don't you head over there and then Greg can share the. Oh, yeah, here. I just had, as a biker downtown that uses this area a lot, one thing that I might, I just wanted to know if you'd considered is why not have the shared use path go out on South Champlain and make South Champlain one way for it's not gonna connect through and it could go one way so that things would be far easier and then have the shared use path go out there to our new Main Street project where it then could connect down that way. And that way you get rid of the shared path and all the difficulties with the railroad. And that would be a dirty area anyway to fight through. Yeah, consider that. Yeah, if you could sign in on the sheet, that would be great. So we capture your name for the record. Hey, thanks. I definitely support one B over the other two. But I do have a question about the 26 foot width. Does it need to be 26? Yeah, so looking at the trafficking that goes through their truck traffic, obviously with the rail operation and it's just while traffic is traveling through Burlington that would be taking this route in order to maintain the curvature and the trucks making those movements safely. 26 foot with a 12 foot lane, one foot shoulder. It's a shared lane. So it's just 13 feet curve to center line. What does shared lane mean in that context? Shared lane in terms of I suppose basically taking the lane with shared lane. For people who don't want to be in the path. And so we did, by virtue of the roadway geometry being a little bit serpentine, certainly going to slow traffic down, but we need that 13 feet width by making the road serpentine we need a 13 feet width for trucks to be able to reverse the roadway without crossing. Okay, got it. Like I said, in one of the design, the whole piece of getting a preferred alternative gets us to a place where we can really do the next level of design. And if there is interest, which we've been hearing to continue the 10 foot cross section, look at improving intersections, looking at where we could narrow potentially the cross sections, all that would happen once we have a preferred alternative. We're still in conceptual at this point. Yeah, so I would echo the concern about the less than 10 foot mixed use path for pedestrians and cyclists in both directions that's going to be tight. Thanks. Thank you. Anyone else for public comment? Nobody online? All right. So bring it back to the commission then. This was warned as a possible boat for so inclined. We'd welcome a motion, but we don't need to take it. I'll make a motion as stated. I can read it for you. The Public Works Commission supports alternative 1B. I apologize. Are you reading from? I'm reading from the notes. If you could put it back. I can pull that back. Okay, perfect. Because it has been slowly modified from what was. It looked like it just took out the date. Yep. Exactly. I wasn't going to say the date because I remembered it not being there. I'm sorry. I'm struggling technology now. That's all right. We'll get it up. Do you want to read it while we're? Yeah. So Public Works Commission supports alternative 1B as the anticipated preferred alternative for the rail yard enterprise project and supports staff as they seek acceptance on the anticipated preferred alternative from the city council. Is that exactly? Yeah, perfect. Thank you. Thanks. I'm old, but I'm so afraid so. Thank you for that. Do we have a motion from Commissioner Barr? Is there a second? Second. Second from Commissioner Damiani. Thank you. Is there any discussion around that motion? All right. Let's go to a vote then. All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Vice-Chair, on the other side, did we get you? Aye. Did you hear me? Yes. Sorry, I was, you're on twice. I was looking at you muted there, but I heard you now. Thank you. Aye for myself. Any post? All right. Thank you. So that motion passes six to zero. Thanks so much for the presentation and the work. Great. Thank you for your time. Appreciate there's a lot of nuance and some narrow corridors here. Good work. All right. Moving forward to director's report item eight. Great. All right. There was no written director's report as I was on vacation. Thank you for your indulgence. We will be having an upcoming waste water treatment plant tour for the public. It is being rescheduled due to a staff absence. So we'll get to the commission, the upcoming date. And the chair and I did talk earlier today about considering a future commission meeting this fall being located at the main waste water treatment plant so that we could talk in tour about some of the deferred reinvestment in the plants and the need for a comprehensive upgrade. So we'll be looking to schedule that in the next month or two. And you saw the upcoming public meeting for the Raleigh Art Enterprise Project. Construction season's going well. Thanks to the technical team. The roundabout is ahead of schedule. We do expect the roundabout to be functional before wintertime. There may be some punch list stuff for 2023. I wanna thank our team for all the good coordination efforts. Water's up on the hill section. University Place is underway. It's been a really good construction season. And do let people know that the construction portal is available for information for folks. Public Information Manager Rob Goulding is also willing to field calls too. But I think from what I have seen, there's been less consternation this year on construction impacts. And I chalked that up to the team doing a good job in us having the foresight to get contractors in as public information teams on the larger projects. The roundabout, the parkway, REP, et cetera. So happy to answer any questions. Great, thanks. If there's questions, we'll take them in our next segment on Commissioner Communications. Let's start on the phone. Commissioner Overby. My only comment is I got a call from a former commissioner who asked about the timing of painting stop lines on the Mansfield Avenue. At the stop signs. I haven't been down Mansfield Avenue in the last month. So I'm not sure what the situation is with the new, also the painting of crosswalks with the new shared use path that's on Mansfield Avenue. So is there a plan for putting the stop hand stop lines and the stops that's a stop signal there and or the crosswalk up near, I guess it's Macaulay Square. That project is advancing towards completion. I don't have the dates, projected dates for you, but we will follow up with those dates. Okay, great. Thank you very much. That's all I have. Thank you. Vice chair on the Oval Ivanka. Okay, let's see. Well, first welcome to Commissioner Damiani and to Commissioner Fox. Yay, happy to have you here. Let's see. So just kind of two quick things. I noticed some tubes, the first on Summit Street and then on South Prospect. Is this Public Works or CCRPC project? Do you have any information on that? City engineer, Norm Baldwin, do you have detail? I know we do annual accounts in coordination with the RPC and I assume that's what it is, but city engineer Baldwin, can you confirm? I can't tell you if it's our CCRPCs or the states. The simple fact is that we've expanded our ability to do accounts to follow traffic calming. We can find out more if you want and give you details at some point here. Okay, my next comment is kind of related to certainly the situation on South Prospect Street. I'm speaking particularly between Maine, really Maple, I'm gonna say Maple, between Maple and Cliff Street. So there's no, you know, it's a busy road and there's no, I don't know what you call it, like the dotted line that separates the lines of traffic. And that is one of the ways I cycle to work. And on several occasions, I know please don't tell me like go to do, go to do C, quick fix. I'm just gonna use my little platform right now and I'll do C, quick fix later. But so what happened is I'm on my bike and a car is, you know, not going, not zooming past me, but going the speed limit. And then another car will go around that car. So what happens is you get vehicles passing vehicles. I mean, it's happened like on both sides where I have been almost hit by a car passing another, either passing a parked car or passing like parked car, car going, you know, the speed limit and then this car just wanting to pass. So it's kind of like the wild west out there. It's really, really unsafe. It's happened on several occasions. And then I get home and I'm just like all buckered up and like complaining to my husband and I'm not going to C, quick fix. So I know I need to do that. So I've also had it where the bus has stopped at Prospect and Cliff and I walking across the street in front of the bus, a car passes the bus at the stoplight and almost hit me while I'm walking the dog. I feel like I'm starting to sound like a crazy old lady but it's really like, it's, you know, this is just like everyday living. And I know the uptick in these incidents are going to, you know, continue to increase as students come back. But I gotta say it's not just students who are doing this. This has happened over the summer as well. So traffic calming, you know, that's the one that you know if those shoes are measuring anything like that, the traffic calming like the South Prospect Speedway would be most welcome. So that's my, so. My unfortunate commentary that that is is that we have people coming out of COVID and their behaviors have not been great. Couple of the fact that we have a police department that's been very diminished in their priorities not traffic enforcement. And the standard practice for traffic management is engineering, education and enforcement. Right now we really kind of have engineering. And so we're really maxed to try to manage those circumstances and they're not great. And I would disagree with you. We've had some kind of crazy stuff with like the state and how they striped center line, which was a problem on Prospect Street this past week. But we're trying to remedy that. So there's things that we are trying to do more than what we've done in the past for the simple fact that the world has changed. So I'm fortunate we have those. Well, I mean, I appreciate your honesty. And yeah, thanks. Yeah, sorry to have that experience. All right, I think that was it. Great, great job team on all the construction. University Place, once I survive Prospect Street and get up to UVM, navigating University Place, it's been amazing to see really the kind of efficiency with which the crews are kind of moving along that section of roadway. So great job on that, that's all. All right, thank you. Mr. Damiani. My only comment was I noticed in reviewing the consent agenda today, a lot of the memos were written by interns and I was just curious if that is sort of a formal internship program that the department has. And if so, I'd love to continue expanding that sort of to help build the capacity that was sort of or the capacity that has been lacking that was sort of discussed earlier. And that if it is sort of more short-term internships, hopefully maybe there can be sort of longer term internships so that I recognize that that does take staff capacity as well to sort of mentor an intern. So maybe some sort of longer internship program could certainly be helpful. City Engineer Baldwin, you wanna respond? Yep, so this year because we've been short staffed people have vacancies and so on and so forth. We expanded our interns for the year and some interns work throughout the summer then leave to go back to school and they're done for the year. Others work on a more diminished schedule like a 10 hour schedule during your school year that are who go to school nearby. And so we have one I believe is continuing but most are returning back to school and the internships we have are mostly been engineers in the field of interest. But we've also had some planners and architects who have played a role in our work this summer. And so it's been a good experience of having them on board and doing some good work. And they've done a lot of good CAD work that support projects and a lot of that field work hands-on stuff of collecting speed data which is important to our traffic calming. And so we're trying to grow our traffic calming in-house capabilities because relying on CCRBC sometimes can be very constraining when we have something that's urgent and it needs a quick answer. So we'd like to do much more. Excellent, thank you. Yeah. It is a paid program. It is budgeted. We've always would like to be able to do more. And they've had some experiences with the Champlain Parkway and some of the geotechnical science of that work which I think they all found really interesting. The animal field visit for the entire office to see some of that ground reinforcement for the box culvert. So it's been pretty cool summer, good summer. That's great, thank you. Mr. Fox. I don't really have anything, but I just wanna say thanks to everyone who made presentations. Thanks to Peggy for her, sorry, Vice-Chair O'Neill-Vanco for her encouragement. And this was fun, I'm happy to be here. I yield my time. Mr. Barr. I have a couple of things too. So more central to where I live, I want huge kudos to DPW for putting in the plastic ballers and it really has slowed down traffic coming down Chase Street. And it's shortened the crosswalk so that it's a lot safer to get across with a rapid flashing beacon up there. I didn't see that on the walk bike. Plan, but thank you for doing it. You should report it, because it's a great improvement there. I will say that the ballers are far enough apart and I like the idea of maybe putting something concrete, like the curvings or something in between. I've actually seen cars going between them and use small cars using the crosswalk to come down, because they're just not used to it. So I don't know if there's gonna be other things put in there at some point, but that's great. And I also did a C-click fix for a center line coming out of Chase Street and they've already put the dots there so I'm sure it's gonna be painted pretty soon. The other couple of items real quick, and I've heard this from several people. I'm surprised Jason Stuffle isn't still on the call. Every time trash or recycles picked up, it seems like those containers always end up in the bike lanes. And I don't know if we have a way of messaging the trash haulers that the city uses or that are used within the city that we could do something about that, but also the recycle, those folks. And I notice even my own, sometimes I put it on the green belt and it ends up being in the street. And it's not a big deal, I get it. I know that short staff and all those kind of things, but I just wanted to mention that. Also when we do the contractors and the flaggers and everybody for the infrastructure improvements and road maintenance and paving, a lot of times those signs also end up in the bike lanes and so it causes a cyclist to have to go out into traffic. I know that there's some places where there isn't a green belt or the sign will not be visible to cars coming so it has to be done that way. I just, if there can be a concerted effort, it would make our dotted line infrastructure at least a little more tenable. So other than that, again, great, great work. I'm glad you had a good vacation. Welcome back. And welcome to Chris and Eliana too. All right, thank you. Well, question, can we get, I know we get volume data from those tube counters. Is there anybody get speed data off of those? It didn't generate both. Really? Depending on how they're set up configured, yes. Ooh, good stuff. Is that, so I guess for, Vice-Chair, I have a question. If it's B-trans collecting it, would that be publicly available on there? Like, I've seen like their traffic count website but like, where would that speed data go? Well, we generally reach for that speed data. I think it's aggregated the CCRPC's data set. There may be other sets from the state, but I think CCRPC is our first place we look. Okay. If there are specific locations, let us know and we can help you out. Yeah. Great, thank you. Comment, we had one of our numerous things that consent agenda pulled off to talk about some details and relating property issues. To emphasize that like in some of those memos, I found myself wishing there was like a little more context in there if there's places like Oak Street where staff mentioned that like, oh yeah, maybe that should have gone in at the same time as we made the change for like property next door, but that sort of context of like, we've had regulation adjustments on this block in the past year related to the stuff would be useful in the memo. There's a couple others in mind that sort of came to it, even on like Union Station, I was a bit curious of like the nature of the restriction for the other adjacent spots there. I mean, I was supportive of the motion, but curious for some broader context. Stuff like that, it would be useful to see on the map of like, not just like where the parking spots are that are proposed to be adjusted, but like what the surrounding ones are related. I do wish it was easier to pull up that sort of information. I know like our city ordinance or ordinances are organized by type of restriction, like the 15 minute restrictions are listed separately from the one hour restrictions and so forth. And I know the Park Burlington website has a map with the type of, it's like the type of meters for the metered spots, but it would be I think a nice aspirational goal to have like that type of view into like what the parking situation is. I mean, not only for like when these odd questions come up, but generally like public information, like I'm trying to get to get school or like whatever store that I don't go to regularly, what are the options nearby? Are there, where are the 30 minute spaces or is it all residential? So I think those types of details may be available to you in the years in coming and that we have an asset management system that we're starting to inventory those types of details that would be useful to members of the public, but also to us in terms of how we manage our work. So I think we're getting there, but we still have a lot of work to do. Yeah, thanks for that. Yeah, that's that management software, management software is enabling us to do a lot of those things that you're talking about. Yeah, one more use case to keep in mind there. Yeah. Great, thank you. And Mr. Damiani got my question on the interns. That's great to see. I'll certainly emphasize the importance of while the engineer Baldwin mentioned a number of challenges in our environment with regards to the enforcement education, engineering dynamic that it's important for us to continue to emphasize. And I appreciate that we have gotten elevated resources for traffic calming in recent years that like that's gonna be continued to be important or for us to emphasize the importance of that obviously enforcement can't be everywhere, but having to monitor. Calm things down and select locations would be really, really crucial. And lastly, I say thank you. Interesting, we had a scheduling switch with this next round of water and wastewater plant tours, but I appreciate that there's a couple opportunities this summer on this bum that I had conflicts and didn't make it, but I'm glad to see that happening. I think it's nice to let people get some eyes on what happens behind the scenes. All right, that's all I've got. I will close out commissioner communications and go to item 10, adjournment, and that's meeting date September 21. Motion to adjourn. I have a motion from commissioner Barr. Seconded. Seconded by commissioner Fox. Is there any discussion around that motion? Okay, pretty clear on this one. All right, go to a vote then. All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? All rights, we are adjourned at 8.58. Thank you all. Has there ever been an opposition?