 Yeah. Okay. Calling the disability access advisory committee meeting to order. On April 13, 2021, 1130 something. And I think it would be good if we could take the agenda out of order. We're still missing. Sarah and Ruth. Would you like to do a roll call? Oh yeah. Right. Sure. You want to announce if you're here, Elise. She's muted. Yes. Here. Okay. Marty. Here. Tori. Here. Myra is here and. Who did I miss? Ruth. I see her picture, but she's muted. Oh. I asked her to unmute. I feel she hit. Mute. Ruth. There we go. Yay. I hear you now. Okay. You're here. This is great. And we're missing Xander. And we're missing sarin. She's going to be late. Yeah. So and Xander might try to come in by phone. But we have a lot of stuff to do. So I thought we would start with the minutes. And I guess. Does anybody have anything that they would like to amend about December 15, January 19, February 9 or March 9, or should we do them separately? Or like a couple typos, things like safety instead of safely. And things that are real words that a spell checker didn't catch. But you probably just type them and, and, you know, and didn't, you know, like how you go fast and you just think that's right. But so there aren't like a couple of things like that. And I don't know if you care. Of course. Yeah. No, this is really good. I will definitely go through and I'll, I'll notice if, if, if it should say safety, not safe. Yeah. The spell checker wouldn't have caught the few things that I caught. And the only reason I caught them is because I listened with a screen reader. If you're looking at it, safety looks like a lot like safely. It's just, and the cell, the spell checker would not have alerted you to it. So, but there were a couple other words that were sort of like that. Okay. Also, the guy who spoke during public speaking in March. I think his name was Christopher. No, Richard. He doesn't live in Amherst. He lives in Hadley. Do you know his last name? I think you had him at the very bottom. It was under public comment. Okay. And he, I just know he lives in Hadley, not Amherst. He lives right near Amherst, but he's not an official Amherst resident. And I don't know, Elise, I don't know if you had an opportunity to read the March 9th, but it refers to the way you navigate with your dog. And I wasn't sure that you would want it to be written that way. I missed that. I could read it aloud. Yeah. Near the bottom. Give me one second. I just need to pull it up. I totally missed it. Oh, that's okay. Give me one second. Sorry. And that was the March 9th. Yeah. And that was for the discussion of the intersection. Yeah. All right. Let's see here. March 9th. Hold on a second. Oh, it's the last one with when he was there. Yeah. It's coming back to me. Sorry. Just, I'm just scrolling through here. So give me one second. Okay. Okay. Okay. Ms. Link stated that she has low vision. It needs to rely on her guard. Guide dog. It says, it says guard. It should say guide. You know what happened? I fixed it after I sent it to you. It does. It says guide. Sorry. Also it says, but keep reading. And that's actually not how it works, but I didn't know how Elise would want to word that. I hear the traffic, but the guide dog. Yeah. I don't know how to word that because she. No, I have to hear the traffic and tell and instruct her to go forward. Okay. That's really helpful. Okay. I will definitely fix that. Yeah. She does not do the judging. That's the problem is I have to be able to hear when the traffic stops. I have to be able to hear when the traffic stops. You know, or see a light change. And then I instruct her to go forward. Okay. Great. He waits for my cues. Yeah. Yeah. So it's like the dog is sort of irrelevant. Yeah. To the, yeah. I mean, the dog will help her get to where she needs to go, but at least makes all the decisions. Unless the dog sometimes goes, no, you idiot. We're not doing that. Yeah. The door started closing and I said forward and she stopped on a dime. I mean, yeah. So thank you for catching that because I, I just, you know, there's a lot to read and I just missed it. Yeah. No, it's, it's fine. Okay. So. I'd almost like to skip Pomeroy for the moment. Yeah. Yeah. Maureen, did you get the last. Email that I sent you maybe 25 minutes ago. I did. But before, but before we go to that, would you all like to make a motion to. Oh yeah. Sorry. As amended. Sorry. And you could do them as all of them at once. So it could be for December 15th, January 19th, February 9th and March 9th as amended. Sure. Okay. So. Yeah. I mean, it's a pain. I can go through them if you want. Oh, no, that's fine. Okay. Okay. Does anybody want to make a motion? So moved. With amendments. Second. Someone. Excellent. Okay. So we can do a roll call about accepting those four sets of minutes. Which I have to say Maureen are really good. They're very, very thorough minutes. I totally want to go on record as. You know, I mean, if I had to do them, they would be terrible. So I'm, I'm really, they're very thorough accounting and I appreciate. The level of detail. Thanks. Okay. All right. Vote. Do you want to do a roll call? We'll call the people. Okay. Okay. So. Myra. Yes. Elise. Yes. Marty. Yes. Tori. Yes. And Ruth. Yes. Okay. They pass. Woohoo. So now we have minutes. We have a public record. We have a public record. We have a public record. And there's so many things in them also that we talked about. And you never know how any of it actually comes out. Except we do know how the letter to the state about the handrails came out. Because he wrote back. And he basically said, we're not considering doing away with the handrails. Like that guy said that they probably were. He said. Right. And then, and then, and then he wrote back again. And he said, we're not considering doing away with the handrails. We're not considering doing away with the handrails. We're not considering doing away with the extra meetings. If we want to make sure that we actually consider items prior to their calendar. That it's not their problem to wait for us. It's our problem to get it to them on time. Pretty much. So speaking of which. Before going on to the intersection. Yeah. Item. I. I had it written down on a post it of who was available for. Holding a special meeting on April 20. I don't have the post it in front. Wait, I do. Xander. It looked like one, two, three, four, five. Members are available on April 20th. Do you think this is going to take a long time? I could potentially be available. I'm not going to New York like I thought I was. But I don't, I wrote to you last week that I can't find. The information. About. What they. Want. I don't know. I don't know. As a. Whoops. Sorry. Can anybody, did anybody see, I mean, the application was there, but I didn't get any attachment that explained precisely what they want. That's different. I mean, you know, any details. So unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to go through the attachment to. You know, the, the, the, all the variance requests. Requests are listed and if there's a, you know, explanation for each of them. So sorry, I ran out of time. I don't know if anyone else. Did anybody look at that? Yes. I read the whole thing. It's very thorough. Well, where is it? It's, it's just a continuation to single document. Well, my just ended in the middle of nowhere. Really? Yeah. And it said, you know, it said attached additional. Whatever. And then there wasn't anything. There was no description. There's a really detailed description. And the whole thing's there. There's plans. There's a really nice write up with photos. It's very well done. Okay. I'll have to see what happened to it. Maybe I just, maybe it just opened in complete. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Or I might ask you to send it again to me. Yeah, I can send it again. And also. I got the basic, you know, questions one through 15 or whatever, and then it ended. Oh, maybe they like the application that you're using just kind of crashed or something. I don't know. Well, if you still have an issue, I could, you know, come up with like a lit, like a list is sort of a cut and paste all their requests. So it's in one location. If that's helpful. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. If you can send it send it again, just the way you sent it. Maybe my thing wrecked it up. I don't know. I don't know. But. So, Marty, do you think they're looking for anything that's going to be controversial? Cause I need to know how much time it'll take. In my mind, no. What they're asking for is. We shouldn't get into this. Because it's not on the agenda. But what they're asking for is, is basically. To not put it in an elevator and to continue to rebuild the front entrance. And not make it accessible because it's a historical piece and the accessibility and the main entrance. In fact, the entrance is in the back of the building. The front entrance isn't used as an entrance. Okay. All right. Okay. It's a pretty kind of ride. Um, thing, but other people may feel differently. Okay. All right. That was helpful to me. Um, all right, Sarah and you're here. Yay. Yes. Cool. I made it. Okay. Um, All right. So we can go on to. No. So, uh, just to confirm. Uh, can I go ahead and schedule? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So we're going to hold a special meeting, uh, next Tuesday, which would be April 13th. At 1130. And I'll send everyone the zoom information and it's to review the variance. Request for, um, Emily Dickinson. What did I say? Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Okay. April 20th. At what time? 1130. Yeah. Yep. Okay. Okay. Um, So we can go on to the Pomeroy intersection. We need to have a report. To the town. Services and organization committee. Um, as soon as possible. Um, Because they are going to make their final recommendation next week. A little bit of background. The transportation access committee did. Vote to recommend a roundabout. Um, they did a very thorough memo. Um, that explained. Uh, where they were coming from. The TSO. Transportation services and outreach. I guess that's what it's called. Transportation services and outreach. Uh, no, I mean the town services and outreach. Too many acronyms. I can't deal. Um, They, um, They appreciated the memo very much that they received from the transportation. Access committee. And, um, I think that. Um, Oh, somebody's looking through papers. Okay. Um, anyway. So they want our recommendations as quickly as possible. It seems to me. Um, that. The, the ducks are in a row for them to be recommending a roundabout. Because they didn't really have any good reason not to. Um, and. In their mind. So the question is really. What is our job as, as the DAAC. As the DAAC. In my mind, and everybody might have a different opinion, but the DAAC is supposed to make sure that we put. The things on the table that need to be. Involved included in whatever project. They come up with. It's not our hours to tell them what to do. We have no capacity to do that, but we have to make sure that we have the, that we have the capacity to do that. And that we must follow in order to make it accessible. And in order to follow a process that ensures that we can have confidence that it will be. And I don't know if anybody wants to change what I just said, but if you do, please let me know, please say. So what do people think about that? Anybody have any ideas that are different from that about what our charge is here. No. I know I gave my input to Maureen about what I thought. To make it most accessible. It should be an intersection with traffic lights and signals. Audible signals. That's what I'm saying. Okay. All right. So what I did was. I, I, I, I think I synthesized a lot of things that I had been thinking. First, I wrote it up as a letter to the Gazette that I never sent. And then, so I took aspects of it. And I took some of what the transportation committee had said, although I didn't take their words. But I, Maureen, do you want to put it up on the screen? Sure. I think this is a working document that you might want to amend it. Okay. Is this the brand new one that looks like a memo at the top? Okay. Hold on a second. Just hold, give me a second. I'm trying to make this bigger. Can folks see this? That can. So just a very, well, the top doesn't, it was the last email that you just sent me that I just opened. So one at the top looks like a memo at the top. The one, the new one looks like a memo at the top. The old one doesn't. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, and so I guess I'm wrong that it, I probably wrote organization. I don't know. It should be outreach. Anyway, so it's long, but I put, I put, I divided it up into sections about safety. I listened to and read the account of the other public hearing. Everybody was talking about, well, not everybody, but most people were talking about safety. And last week I listened to the TSO meeting and they were talking about safety. So that seems to be the paramount interest of everybody as well as, you know, getting it to feel more like a village center and inviting people to be able to park and go in businesses and blah, blah, blah. But safety was what everybody was talking about. So I put some items under safety. Then I. You know, where to cross. Yeah. From a blind person's perspective, I wrote this. I think most of the issues here have to do with people who cross slowly or people who can't see where or when to cross. The other people don't seem to have much objection. You know, to it. So where to cross and when to cross. And then I put a, I think. Conclusions, right? And I think that's a good way to, to look at some of the things that have been highlighted and highlighted those things into something else. So obviously at the very bottom, I said, we voted, I don't know what we're going to vote. And I don't know what it's going to come out like. I don't know what that's going to happen. But the rest of what I put up there is, I think encapsulation of what they should hear from us, including. important that the DAAC hear from them as they're going through this process of design of this intersection because the last time I wasn't on the DAAC but you made some very strong good recommendations that were not followed and you were never told that they were not going to be followed. So I don't want that to happen again and I do think that they need to really oh one thing Guilford said at one of the public meetings and I don't know which one but in response to a question about the audible signals in town, none of which are working right, he said that there were several issues one had to do with maintenance and one had to do with neighborhood complaints, neither of which are reasons in the law for you to not have audible signals. So that's why I put the part in the conclusion about that the town must maintain whatever they put in and I do think it's all part of our job here because I think that there are aspects of our job that are not being followed by the town. So that's why I put some things in that don't look terribly germane to the design and if you don't want them in and you want them in some other format that's fine but that's why I put them there. Myra, can you send this draft you prepared so we can get it as an attachment and see it? Oh yeah, Maureen, do you want to send it? Sure, yep. And it all came to my mind so the roundabout at the intersection of what's that? Palma Roy Lane. No, no, no, in the North Amherst near Bertucci's, I mean. Oh Triangle Street. Yeah Triangle Street, yeah. So that is pretty heavily congested area in their businesses on both sides. So maybe we can use that as an example of how it makes it dangerous for pedestrians to cross the roundabout. Is it something we can add? Yeah there are several reasons that it's dangerous for me. I don't know if Elise finds the same problem because Elise can see some of it. Have you tried to cross there or is it just too much? Oh no way. No, okay you wouldn't do it either. Okay and you live in town. Yeah I have to have and the audible signals forget it all over town they're horrible. But yeah I know I wouldn't, I avoid roundabouts. I really do, I just have no way of telling whether somebody's really going to stop for me. That's pretty hard to know. Yeah maybe then it could be added to the letter that the roundabout at the Triangle Street is a big impediment for people with visual impairments. It is there. Oh it is there. Yeah. Yeah I didn't say specifically why. I could put a couple, let's see Maureen it's under, I think it's under the conclusion part. I had it somewhere else and I moved it. And two impediments to eliminate this problem, audible sign signals would be sufficient? Hard to know. It depends what kind of audible signals they put in. For example I know there and one thing that it says in the material that the director of the U.S. Access Board sent to me it says that the signals should tell you what segment is being crossed. And in a roundabout that's really important because everything isn't square, right? So it's really, it's hard to know where you're going so that I have been in places where you push the button on the light and when it is safe for you to cross it says safe to cross Main Street, you know safe to cross Main Street, safe to cross the other street or like if I were at the roundabout at Triangle Street if I had been able to find the curb cut and if I did it often enough I'd be able to find it but it's very disorienting to know because that's not even a square intersection so it's a terribly difficult place to orient. So the little buttons that they should have there should say crossing, you know crossing northeast or crossing Triangle Street toward the northeast or something like that because it's the only way you can know and they do make things like that and I've seen them in places and that's what the Access Board guys said they were going to include in this. Yes Ruth. Yeah, you know one of the things even with the audible signals since I moved here a number of years ago I have complained that even downtown and the main intersection of Amherst and you know over my wall even with the audible signals there's not enough time for somebody who's in a wheelchair or a walk over across the street before the traffic starts flowing again so I think you know we need to say you know with adequate time. I think I tried to say that but I can highlight them I can separate them out so that they're clear on their own and not subsumed into another sentence. Right, right. Okay, okay. Marty, Elise had raised her hand. The other thing I have to say is and I've had this problem downtown all the time well it used to be better when they had like the bird chirping. The audible signals are not often not loud enough I mean sometimes cars and trucks and things especially if somebody has a loud car radio or there's a loud conversation I can't hear the audible signal it needs to be a little loud enough so that if there is heavy traffic one can hear it. Some of them that they make are actually noise sensitive so they can make themselves louder and softer depending on the ambient noise I don't know how that works but it does. Really? Yeah they make some really amazing signals. You know the ones that are downtown were installed in the 90s or even 80s maybe and you know they're very very old they don't work and they haven't been maintained anyway but they do have things in the state of the art that I've seen in places actually that are pretty cool. That's great. I think in Vancouver I saw some or or Victoria I was amazed one of those Canadian cities I was in that that you know there are things out there that work well. And also another thing about the audible signals it would be I recommend that they be consistent all over town. Yes not each one different some working some doesn't work you know so. Yeah I don't know if they can do that but I think that's a good recommendation to try to standardize what the town has. That's right that's right. So you know what to expect you're right thank you. Yeah so you get everybody gets familiar with what to expect and then they know especially for visually impaired people. Excellent yeah. Yeah did you. Yeah I just wanted to go back to the board's review. If you're going to ask the DPW to or whatever the group is it's doing this to have the board review it we ought to have what's called a 50 percent review and a pre bid review so that we see the final bid documents before they go to bid but we see also see the 50 percent where it's not too late to make some changes. Ah okay so spell it out precisely. Yeah the board's the board I would say the board requests 50 percent design review and a pre bid review review of the final documents. The final design documents okay. Yes oh cool thank you I didn't know that language existed that's great. Yeah that's pretty standard. Yeah okay sometimes they say a 95 percent review but I just call it a pre bid review. What does 50 percent stand for? Pardon. A 50 percent what is this percent? That would be the percentage would be the percent of design completed. Oh I see. So you know you know you don't design it the way you do it is you design it overall and then you start adding in all the details. Oh I see I see okay. Wait I'm now confused. The 50 percent review is once the construction has begun. No no 50 percent review is during the design. Once they complete 50 percent of it. Yeah okay. How they work. So by that point you can see the overall intent and all the major things will be in so you'll be able to see that there's um signalization you'll be able to see all of that but it just won't all be fleshed out then find the what you wanted to look for in the in the pre bid review is make sure that those controls are in there. Yep good idea. Yeah and the curbing and the particular domes and how tactile the crosswalk is going to be and yeah how they're going to do that and yeah. And Marty the pre bid review would that be at 90 percent? It's 95 ish. Okay that's great and that would be after the town votes the design that the town council in June will vote on which design they want and so it would be between probably June and September or something while they're drawing up the documents that we would want them to stay in touch with us or the consultant who could be this woman Meg Robertson who no longer works for the state of Massachusetts she just retired last month um but she's a nationally recognized expert actually on this stuff um and if she doesn't know something she knows precisely who does so she can find out and if they're going to build it they might as well do it right. Okay so that's that's really good um so I don't know what this committee is really supposed to vote because if we vote that we want a particular design um I don't know I don't even know how I feel about the particular design does I mean. So here's a question for the committee is that you know there's you know there's the the conversation of should it be a roundabout or an enhanced intersection so that's one question maybe the committee wants to weigh on and then the other question would be uh you know if if there's a roundabout you know would you want to see that there's you know the the pedestrian signalized audible pedestrian signals and would there be sort of islands between between the crosswalk to sort of reduce the length the width of the road where you would cross and like what what features would you want to see in place if it's a roundabout and what features would you want to see in place if it was an enhanced um intersection those might be helpful so I would I would offer an amendment which what to what you said which and it's what the Guilford and Chris have done wrong the entire time they have said an enhanced intersection or a roundabout nobody ever said anything about an enhanced roundabout um and a roundabout as one with no controls should not even be considered because it's not going to be legal even I mean they could get it in under the wire but it is not it is not going to be acceptable in very short order to even consider a roundabout that doesn't have some signalization to make this a little more complicated I'll tell you that my daughter lives in Somerville and she says there's a roundabout near Tufts at Powderhouse Circle or Powderhouse Square or whatever they call it it's a roundabout and she said it has a light in it and she said that as a driver she can tell you it is incredibly dangerous because the light is in it because people when a car stops three cars up from you you don't know that they're going to stop you think that they're that that's that's why there are more rear end collisions Guilford said at last week's meeting that there are more rear end collisions because you don't know that there's a pedestrian who's going to be crossing so everybody puts on their brakes and there are rear end collisions but she said it's very dangerous and what's more when everybody is backed up because someone's crossing or there's a light if people are trying to get into the roundabout they can't and if people are trying to get out of the roundabout depending on where they're trying to get out they can't do that either she said it's terribly dangerous with the signals so i'm not sure i i don't know marty you might know a lot more about this than i do but i thought we had it all figured out and she said no you don't have it all figured out it's really it's dangerous when they put signals in it so are you kind of leaning towards uh enhanced intersection rather than the roundabout i don't even know because the enhanced intersection has problems too they're going to put so many lanes in it they're going to put a left hand turn lane a right hand turn lane and a bike lane all in this enhanced you know you said at the last meeting sarin that they're going to have to take a lot of land they are if they're going to do well either way they're going to have to take a lot of land i guess but crossing a very very broad with left and right land turn you know right lane turning and all that that could be not so easy either elise what do you think oh you're muted haunting that sounds like a mess to me i don't know i mean i was also going to add that but it's just i guess it's kind of a mute a moot point after what mara brought up is that a lot of times when i've seen crosswalks like in south hadley when you ring you know when you press the button to cross there's like a light up thing on the crosswalk that warns drivers that there's a pedestrian wanting to cross but the whole thing sounds like a mess i don't know like a it's hard i don't know how you can win with this it is hard you know i and in my email to morin you know expressing my opinion i said you know we were we happened to be at cape cut they have lots of these roundabouts they really were beautifully very smooth but they are in intersections that are not really populated right they just you know they're on on six a or something you know it's just makes the traffic flow smooth but i especially look to see if there are any businesses and people might be crossing no not at all you know yeah it's a very tricky thing with high pedestrian traffic that's right and that area is pretty heavy and both sizeable plus that a gas station too it has lots of traffic coming in and out all times of the day i mean that needs some work that the intersection needs some work but i'm not sure whether with enough controls on their roundabouts that they can solve that problem i don't know i'm kind of leaning my first choice will be enhanced in intersection and roundabout second because of the concerns that safety concerns to pedestrians and children and mothers with their babies and you know and those of us of course ruth you said earlier that the the the crossings in town the lights didn't provide enough opportunity no cross so if it's going to be a very let's let's go with sarin's idea and and what alise says she would prefer if they're going to put a right hand turn lane left hand turn lane a bike lane and then two traffic lanes how do you envision that working for you if you need more time do you need an island do you what do you need well they have pedestrian crossing thing like they have downtown you know you push the button and then it just allows you to go when there's pedestrians on the way so i don't know enough about driving but are there lights that are long enough in with that many lanes that are long enough for people who walk slowly can you set the length to whatever you need that's not a fixed number that's not fixed okay so it's not fixed the controls determine that okay so are any of you familiar with really long um sequence lights that are frustrating to you as a driver that made my one of the things gilford and chris keeps saying is that people run lights um and that's how people get killed because they don't want to wait they know it's a long light they're going to run through it that's that's how people get killed and that in roundabouts people don't get killed so much because they don't run the light they you know the the traffic gets slowed um and so i kind of figure i don't know i don't know the best answer here because there is data about people running lights and we've all seen people run lights probably everybody at the table including people i drive with have run a light yeah at a time but you know um and mostly you get away with that stuff so i i don't know i but do you as drivers how do you feel about really long lights in a very wide intersection like that there aren't i mean you just have to wait for the light yeah tough i mean it can be very frustrating but so what you know yeah exactly that's how i feel okay exactly okay so for a very broad intersection somebody like me would need a very clearly tactile crosswalk so that i know exactly where i'm crossing to because it's it's very broad so you don't get a sense of where you know you can get really messed up yeah um so i guess i really so are you does somebody want to make a motion about what this committee should Maureen said two votes so we could vote either for a signalized roundabout or an enhanced intersection i have a question then what but two part motions are hard to come by are hard to come up with myra uh elise has a question really um please yeah i'm just um i'm backtracking a bit um i know it was mentioned about islands in the middle because it's a really wide area uh and i just want to like for clarity for me anyway is if you put an island there does that mean you have to push another button to cross again i mean is it going to be like two traffic lights to deal with no let me although uh at least yeah i'm confused let me see um i'm gonna pull up an image though some of you won't be able to you know what i mean yeah um so here it hold on a second i need to show it um hold on one second let me see if i can make this image larger i can skate yeah okay and you sorry now i need to find it again wait there it is here you go so uh this is an image can you see this at least yeah there's like a circle in the middle and oh yeah okay and that's where all the track it's four ways okay yeah so this is an image of a roundabout and um and i believe triangle street has these islands um this meet their median islands they do and so um where my mouse is you could see where there's a crosswalk there's there is a tactile surf surface where's your mouse i'm sorry at the sort of bottom of the page uh yeah i can't see your mouse it's really tiny i can't either okay sorry um well if if uh can you see okay now i can you see uh the big can you uh look at um i see you look at any other cross oh you see it okay so where as long as it the problem is it's jumping around okay so if you can put it somewhere and keep it there and yeah okay so this crosswalk uh shown here uh there is a tactile surface and so the person would cross the street and they would reach this median and so um and for the car for the vehicle that's approaching this island um you know before before the island the road is wider and so um they're going at a faster rate and with the intent of the island the median is actually because the the lane is becoming more narrow it's actually uh it's trying to slow down the the motorist um and so so that's um supposed to be uh you know a safe deeper caution for the pedestrians crossing here and so then um when they're leaving the island there's another tactile surface and then they would cross the street again and and get back to the other side of the of the sidewalk of the street and so and that's mimicked through all the throughout the whole roundabout this roundabout is not showing any um audio uh pedestrian activated signals but i just wanted to show you an image of the medians it helps to have the picture yeah um so what are they going to do with the uh gas station because i don't know well so like you can enter in and enter and exit from the um um not not the palmeroy lane but the other street rustle rain rustle street i don't question so you can enter and um you can enter from one and it says enter only and then the next one you cannot enter but you can exit so how is like a car coming from amherst but they say oh by the way i better get gas and how are they going to get into that enter sign those are real that's a really good question and you know if the town does pursue a roundabout um and you know and they have medians that we just discussed you know they would have to figure out where would there be gaps so um that's a that's a design they would have to figure out where would a median make sense there would there be gaps so for cars could enter and exit like the gas station for instance um but that's something that would be worked out as part of the design phase so that we're not in that phase yet where we're just trying to figure out whether the town should the town is trying to figure out the town is trying to figure out should they hire a consultant to pursue a roundabout at the location at that intersection or or do a traditional enhanced uh you know four-way uh intersection with lights and if it if it is just an enhanced lighting there and are they going to do consulting or just the public versus going to do their own design yeah so the town would hire a consultant for either option if whether it's an enhanced intersection or a roundabout and so that you know the designer would be working with staff and uh to such as like our you know DPW and planning staff um you know based on what the town council approves and they would be working on that together and working I would assume working with adjacent property owners because this will directly impact those properties and you know they would need to have some sort of a negotiation um if they did need to take some of their land um and so that would all be part of that process and I really like Marty's suggestion for the two levels of review the town you know is of course um you know regardless if Marty didn't say that um the the design would be coming back to the DAAC among various other boards and committees for review before this would be actually constructed I have a question relating to what Sarin said about the gas station and about the uh median islands is it I I don't know anything about how this would happen but did I hear you say Maureen that maybe the median would be a problem if there were I mean for people getting into the gas station I anecdotally you know they I think it's uh I don't know if it's if it's a problem or not because I'm not a I'm not a intersection designer um I think it's just one of the many site constraints or considerations that need to be fleshed out as part of the design so I don't think it's a problem it just it needs to be considered of how how does that work with the design Marty yeah it's really similar to the north uh side of the triangle street um roundabout where you make a left turn if you're coming down east pleasant street towards town and you make a left turn into the bank in the box it's it's about the same distance as you would have in the gas station so you if you're coming if you're going down um 116 you make a left turn before the median to get into the roundabout because it's a really short distance you mean to get into the gas station yeah to get into the gas station aha okay and if you're coming from the south you would just make you would just do it after yeah so the entrance wouldn't be at the intersection particularly it would be at the northern end of the property yeah which is where I enter all the time when I go there okay I usually turn I turn in that that rear next between the gas station and mountain dub they turn in right there you've got plenty of room yeah this is the gas seat I I've pulled up um google google maps little maps yeah and um yeah the gas station is it is further north north north is this north oh you know what sorry yeah sorry I got confused of my cardinal directions yep sorry the gas station is north of the intersection yeah and so they could easily you know exit keep the existing exit or maybe it gets moved up more um use the northern entrance between yeah if they are going to put islands then I thought the islands might be blocking the entrance and exit to the gas station from the drawing that we looked previously so that's what it was a kind of something in my mind how about if we do this if we say we are at at the time with all the safety concerns we are leaning toward an enhanced intersection however if we see that enough safety measures are taken we might also be okay with the roundabout I mean kind of leave it vague like we're not really saying let no white or that kind of that same so you are trying maybe to get us to say that we would but that you're you're maybe gonna you think maybe we should should support the enhanced signalized intersection with the understanding that the town may decide else wise in which case the the safety measure you know you know the safety measures elucidated in our memo need to be considered or need to be implemented is that something like that you know I mean we don't totally rule out roundabout there could be something there that they can place and also the other thing is if they are going to acquire land with the roundabout which they need because it's such a you know narrow intersection so we'd enhance a system are they going to pursue with the land acquisition as well I don't think that's our business as a DAAC well then you know the reason I am asking that is because then they'll just put new traffic lights and here we go and then they'll just put pedestrian crossing that's it is that what they are because we don't know we are seeing more of the roundabout but we are not seeing what they mean by enhanced intersection there well no I think they did Maureen you have a picture of what they have in mind of the enhanced intersection right I do I can pull that up and while I do that Marty has raised your hand okay Maureen I sent you a copy of a letter from a person that I've worked with on and who is really is an excellent designer for these kinds of things and my friend said that there are also pedestrian signals that are activated by they're automatically activated they sense that there's someone there and they flash up and show a pedestrian and it's just so all the drivers can see that there's a pedestrian someplace and I think they should look into that kind of sensing and enhanced sensing equipment I think that's great that's what I was getting at earlier too yeah this is this is all new stuff it's just really just come out yes there is also technology that allows you to use your iPhone to activate the traffic signal but then you have to be able to have a hand-free and no gloves on to activate your iPhone you know what I mean so that you can make the traffic you know what I mean so it's nice if you're living in a easy climate where you don't have to wear gloves and stuff like that I mean I don't think it works if you tell your iPhone to activate the signal maybe it does I don't know maybe you can say activate stoplight and it'll do it I don't know but there is that stuff there are people working on that stuff I don't know that how much of it's available right now I have this image of everybody carrying a little Alexa with them and going Alexa turn on so I'm showing a slide from a presentation that was given by planning staff to the town council on January 25th 2021 and so this is a slide for the enhanced signalized intersection and it and it lists replacing and adding new sidewalks adding bike lanes adding turning lanes to the north and southbound new signals crosswalks and curb ramps in all directions so these are the elements that would be included as part of an enhanced signalized intersection and I don't think that we for our purposes we we you know I encourage the committee to you know make sure of general comments of what kind of elements that you want to see part of this project that would you know be a safety improvement for accessibility or pedestrians or whatever item that you want to talk about but we really shouldn't be getting into well how wide is this and how wide is that because we're just not there yet and that's not the purpose of of the town council's review and that that would be fleshed out once a designer is hired and and more that's true but the width of it does have something to do with the safety of it for people for some people it has to do with the safety of it because um well because of wide open spaces unless they're the site unless the crosswalk is very very clearly tactful yes I could do it if the but the one up the one up at UMass at university drive is not clearly tactual it is clearly visual no but it is not clearly tactual especially if there's a little bit of ice or dirt left from you know it's it's it's it's minimally tactual and if you did it on a sidewalk where people have time to figure it out and find the actual things that you need to follow that's great it could be on a sidewalk in a street it needs to be much more clear because you don't have a lot of time to think about it you just have to do it it's like clear if you go off of this textured surface or if you go onto this textured surface you went you did you know too much like if it if the border is textured and the thing is smooth you figure that out okay i'm staying on the smooth if you're staying on the textured you're staying on the textured but you don't want to have to think about is this really textured I don't know or is that just dirt yeah right yep yeah exactly you nailed it yeah good to know thank you Meyer George so uh I believe was it Tori I think Tori no not Tori sarin sarin had made a motion uh to well no I I didn't really make it I was okay I was thinking about it you're talking it out okay yeah it wasn't really definite I mean I like the roundabout and I know that that place is not suited for it to be a town south town center it's not really equipped to be like that right now so I'm all for revising it but I don't know which way but safety concern safety is a big concern in my mind too because I know on across uh on at the corner there's mission mission cantina which I like very much and then there's cbs next to that which I also like and then my hairdresser is on the other side you know and I go and get that gas from that's what's that speedies so those are really very much used and then there's some stores on the other side too so it's really heavily congested with businesses and parking is always an issue when you go to mission cantina and I try to find parking across the street on the you know not across the street from the not the palm oil lane I I forgot now what 116 yeah yeah and then there's also going to have some maybe uh walking places and the park if the town is intending to purchase that golf course if everything goes through okay and I hope it will you know so there'll be I understand the roundabout might be a better projection for the future plans but safety is a must so maybe we should really make sure that all these concerns we have how it is going to be addressed what they are planning to do so I'm a little confused I mean I'm not I'm not clear about what I think either Karen but um you before you said that we that you were thinking about an enhanced signalized intersection with the understanding that if they vote for the roundabout they need to look into they need to uh adhere to the recommendations that we have in our memo and now I'm hearing something different maybe it's because I'm confused myself yeah no I am too I am too I don't I don't I mean I thought this was much easier a month ago I mean I don't see how a roundabout enhances the community feel at an intersection especially since there are always going to be cars nobody's going to be crossing them well I wouldn't say nobody but the the crosswalks are not going to be in the middle of the roundabout they're going to be on the edges of the roundabout the roundabout um you know so there's always going to be cars zinging by or going by the uh the you know the the village center aspect of it there's never going to be a time when you can just say okay we're going to cross the street because we have a red light um so I don't know I mean I don't I the town feel of it is lost and that's one thing that chris breaststroke said last week also um you know about also you know how does it feel uh you know are you going to be able to put ideally in 50 years they would want to put the buildings closer to the street and the parking behind which gives it more of a center feel like a village center feel and all that and that's not going to happen tomorrow but she was saying that you know with a roundabout that's not the easiest thing so I don't I don't even know what I think I think that um does anybody know what they think marty knows what she thinks does anybody else know what they think well should we start at the basics I think everyone's in agreement that there should be uh you know accommodations that are focused on making this intersection safe for pedestrians is that an agreement that there should be like a pedestrian activated signals uh that could be there either for a roundabout or an enhanced intersection audible to and the actual yeah okay so we can say actual taxual uh so pedestrian activated signals with audible beacons or is uh well you guys can say yeah or nay and and then with audible I mean with um tactical um you know yes clearly um with um what what's the word you would say tell um yeah but I was looking for an adverb that makes the tactile very um obvious because you can make them tactile and you know if if it's you know a little bit icy which of course it never is around here um you wouldn't even know that you're in the crosswalk how about raised raised is the best but that makes it a problem but the way raised the raise becomes an issue for people like me who have wheels yeah okay or crosswalkers so tactile let's see here I'm going to look up with the definition of a tactile surface uh Marty what is what is the is there a standardized term or truncated domes well truncated domes are the um um but I I wouldn't know what you're looking for I wouldn't put truncated domes there no you have to put them on the cross you put them at the curve you do but not on the yeah but what do you call the rest of it what do you call the surface that we would want not on you know for actual clarity textured textured textured you want a heavily textured yes surface um well then for sarin though that has to be good for her wheelchair though right yeah there's always that problem right yeah yeah I mean the truncated domes would be terrible to yeah because you can't do that between no no no you cannot do that are you talking at the beginning of the crosswalks or where are you where are you talking about no we're talking in the crosswalk surface crosswalk the whole street yeah the crosswalk surface clearly actually demarcated crosswalks how about that yeah that's a good can they be a different color too I mean will there be clear lines or color well they can always stripe them they need to be visually and textually yeah different than the road surface right you know I remember years ago the route nine think of Amherst you're going toward belter town yeah Amherst college put those crosswalks yeah they are a little higher I mean it's not yeah those are raised crosswalks right so those are okay for mobility impaired people right also they had blinking lights which was very good I thought but then the blinking lights disappeared I don't know why and then the weather and the plows and they don't last long enough because they they get right out of way is there any sorry maybe there has been some improvements since that because I'm talking about at least 10 years ago maybe I don't know but those were nice and they would give the audio signals and the blinking lights so it alerts the traffic and I know the traffic really slowed down when there was the blinking light okay so far I've heard that the committee recommends progestery and activated signals with audible beacons and visually and textually different cross surfaces for the crosswalk yes and truncated domes at the ends of the crosswalks yeah well that's pretty much the law I mean everybody does that now although they do them well in some places and not well in other places there are some cities that have them and they're so clear it's like oh my god it's amazing to cross the street here and with what it what are folks feel about so again this is regardless if this is around about or intersection right or these are the recommendations yeah so what are folks thoughts about islands between let's see here could there be an island between the crosswalk and crossing the road or if the crosswalk for my purposes if the crosswalk is clearly demarcated texturally I don't need an island no me either and I don't know if Ruth does because of the speed like a halfway place that's the question and or perhaps the town could explore other traffic calming measures that is actually the phrase they use all the time that is a capsule that just is a blanket statement okay yeah you can put one of those pot shops right before it's good I was thinking that even if they widen the road there and they have the roundabout there I don't think that area is big enough for the islands although the island right looks good you don't have a bicycle lane and a roundabout bicycles are go in the roundabout just like cars there are no bicycle lanes and roundabouts you know I think the issue of the the island is an issue that's a design issue okay because the the road engineers will know whether you need an island or not as a place of refuge halfway across you know in Boston they're like on Tremont Street there's actually a signal in the median strip so you when you cross Tremont Street you you cross from the one side to the center and you wait for the light and go to the other side where on Tremont Street are you crossing right by the common no it's do you know where summer set is it summer set street do you know where the McCormick building is by the um by the courthouse yes okay yeah okay you've got the Boston police station right below it's right there okay and you say they have a different light in the median yeah you have a call button there at the median and you wait until it activates but the you know you're talking I think there's six lanes at that point yeah that's a crazy place yeah it's it's nuts but they do have it because I often go and end up standing in that median that was my question earlier about that yeah but it'll be up to the design engineers I think we shouldn't try and tell them okay that we have to have a median you know okay it's really their expertise so Maureen do you want to read what what we sort of cobbled together well okay so uh let's see here uh recommends uh 50 percent hold on just give me a second uh 50 50 design review so the the town representative and the designer should present uh come back to the DAC with the 50 design review and for a pre-bid review of the final design documents for uh DAC review and recommendations um and that um regardless uh that the the improvements of this intersection should include progestery and activated signals with audible beacons and have visually and textually different cross services I would call them audible signals beacons or something else okay thank you signals signals and visually and textually textually different surfaces uh we could tweak that a little bit for the crosswalks um and um truncated surfaces uh at the end of each crosswalk you're marking the marking the yeah and let me just go through my notes to see if there's anything that's where it would be marking the curb cuts yes to mark curb cuts yep okay um to mark but yeah that was curb cuts um I think that was it and so this doesn't doesn't say hey this doesn't for you know what I just said it doesn't say do a roundabout or do enhance intersection and saying do these items regardless does anyone feel strongly one way or the other that it should be because people wrote it you know wrote to Tori you said and enhanced at one time sarin you did at one time I did at one time Elise did I don't know what Ruth said because she was muted the last time but I don't I don't know um does anybody feel like we have to take a stand in favor of the enhanced signalized intersection anymore or um I want to know if people want to vote on that I'm feeling like as long as the accessibility features are there then hopefully it will work the way we needed to work whether it's a roundabout or a enhanced intersection well people stop even if it's a roundabout I mean if it has a light if you have a suggestion signal yeah because you're gonna push button at the crosswalk okay so yeah and then what's the difference then yeah so Myra you were saying your daughter said this the light is dangerous but what about the flashing yield I don't know and also I don't even on a bad day we couldn't have as many cars as they have going through that right I mean that's a crazy place I mean you know it's summerville it's like wall-to-wall cars okay and we don't have that Elise has raised her hand okay you know I think I my question got answered so yeah so we have 15 oh wait so do we uh want to do a roll call with these recommendations are you guys do you guys feel that you're ready to move forward with this we have 13 minutes Ruth how do you feel about it um I don't know for me it's like six of one half dozen of okay okay as long as the features that we that Maureen just mentioned that we've included are included so at the end of the thing I would say that the that the the yeah I can figure that out um that we're going to take a vote and we're going to I guess read it as a motion so we can have something illegal and then we'll get to it I think it's going to be anonymous because nobody's objecting to it can I add something yeah to the 50 percent of the design could we put all these safety measures included in that 50 percent design so I don't want them to say oh yeah we will we unfortunately we are at the 50 percent and that's toward the 80 percent or something you know so we want them to think with that consideration when they start the process you don't want it to be accessibility should not be an add-on at the end no yeah yeah that's a really interesting thought I that's good so really what we want to say is that accessibility should be the paramount the safety and accessibility should be the paramount concern of any design from the beginning of the design from the beginning of the design phase right and it's really that's what you said yeah right yes the right way to say this would be that the 50 design review shall include all aspects of pedestrian safety perfect that's great yeah that's exactly what I'm yeah no perfect great you see it does take a village okay so Maureen go for it what do you have there okay so I do need a tweak every a little bit with the word but recommend that that pedestrian activated signals with audible pedestrian and activated signals with audible signals we need to play with that and visually in textually textual surfaces for crosswalks truncated surface at the end of each crosswalk to mark curb cut by you know the 50 design review shall include all aspects of pedestrian safety at the 50 design review let's see here the the town shall come back to the DAC for review and comments at the 50 design review and pre-bid review of the final design documents that's pretty good we can play with the language yeah but are people willing to vote on that yeah sure I am okay is there anyone who objects I think we can say we voted unanimously yeah great so and there's six of you six zero perfect yeah great job everyone so I will play with the wording a little bit to make that more coherent yeah if you could just send me send me your wording even as a mess and I can play with it too okay yeah what I think um I can put that at the bottom that's how the TAC did it for the TSO I'm getting the acronyms finally that's how they did it they wrote up all the stuff and at the bottom they put their recommendation so we can do that at the same time and I can change some of the words and move some of the sentences around does anybody have any objection to our sending the whole memo the way it is just with the vote at the bottom I mean with with the changes that we've made I would split some things out to make sure that the timing is clear to them and everything the timing for the flashing I stuck that in this in the part of a sentence I could make it a separate bullet but does anybody object to my including to my to my memo as it would be amended as we discussed it with that conclusion at the end of it that's fine that's good that's all right okay and um Myra I noticed that the memo has some typos and just some sort of formatting issues a little bit so I send you the motion in the near future like in the next hour and then you will do your magic and then I'll send it back and you can clean it up and then I'll put it on letterhead and then I can have you look at it one last time if you want I used to say to the people at work can you pretty this up please okay um all right so we only have like a minute or whatever we have but I forget what else was on this oh yeah we need a representative to the cultural oh we did have that we did have that yeah um so what else did you put on well I was just seeing did Myra no sorry did Marty and Elise attend that meeting yeah I just said uh huh yeah how did it go it was pretty innocuous yeah they're talking about doing things on zoom um they I didn't see any problems with what they were doing they did come up they did um say that our town website isn't accessible is that true so that's a really good segue is that listed on this agenda yes oh oh well excellent segue Marty um so the town does need to um we've been having conversations about purchasing a software program that would make it ADA compliant and um I would uh I'm I would need to talk to our communications manager Brianna Sunderd to get the more specifics about it but my understanding is that the software would increase and decrease the font size and that it would automatically make any scanned PDFs into readable PDFs and that it would perhaps translate in various different languages and there could be other features I'm just I think that's just sort of the um the big picture and um so there's been discussions about making that purchase item which then dovetails into the next item which is capital budget for ADA improvements and I've been having meetings with staff about how um you know we've been informed that the town would would include ADA improvements as a capital budget and they agreed that they could add $50,000 to the capital budget and um there'll be a presentation to the jc jc pc jc pc yeah joint capital planning uh in may and so um I've been talking to um Rob Mora chris breastrip and Jeremiah Laplant uh Jeremiah Laplant is our facilities manager and so he manages a lot of our town buildings and Rob Mora is our building commissioner and chris breastrip is our planning director and so you know we we met recently like last week about well you know what a you know I talked about how we finalized the ADA plan and Jeremiah has you know real intimate knowledge of these facilities and of what he thinks could be corrected especially for facilities that have a lot of users so such as the bank center and um so we were talking about maybe there could be a physical improvement done at the bank center that would have a big impact and then there was another conversation about in this meeting about well the if the website was ADA compliant that would be have a huge impact across the town um uh for all all democrat for you know so many um residents and visitors going on the website and then we talked about well what other sort of technology and can communication improvements could be done so like um the traffic lights that he has to fix well there's that but um like so meeting rooms should have um they should have assisted listening devices so some of our meeting rooms have them but some don't and you know I've spoken with Mary Beth can't say her last name who's our senior center director and she often expresses the need for assisted listening devices in their meeting community rooms and um there's and then the north lot the north amherst library as we know needs to have assisted listening device and the community center in the police station needs assisted listening devices and so and then there could be signs that need to be updated then who include Braille so um we were thinking maybe there could be a theme of technology and communications or would it that could be that's one sort of idea or the other idea is maybe we could do um like a physical improvement to a to a facility um at like the bank center so what are do you guys have any thoughts on that and I think the the line item will be for facilities for interior or exterior facilities I don't think it captures at least just not yet about sidewalks and roads in intersections but that could be adjusted or I would need to have another conversation how much are assisted listening devices does it require wiring into the room or is it um that's a really great that's a really great question so I think it quickly becomes I don't want to say complicated but I I think I would I would obviously need to talk to our IT department um to talk about well what is so talk about what what equipment that they would need to make it work um and then how much would that all cost so for the town room and town hall for instance there is uh you know microphones at each of the seats where board members sit and all those microphones go into one system for broadcasting and so our assisted listening devices um that we offer there are for people that use hearing aids so um the this sort of device you would it kind of looks like a walkie talkie you would um I think that the sort of walkie talkie device communicates to your hear your hear the the the hearing device and it automatically feeds into the town room's audible system and so they all communicate to one another so um that's just giving you a snapshot of what the requirement is for that room I don't know and I my guess that that might be pricey but I don't know if that's um there could be less pricey options out there so if we were to look into it library one has to be taken care of by the the project so we don't have to worry about that one I will say that project's being funded by a resident um and um that has graciously donated needed money to fund that project um and I it's unclear of what that amount is for instance so uh if it comes over you know over budget on some items it'd be interesting to see what would be eliminated but yeah it is a requirement under ADA regulations that there should be a um assisted listening devices in that community room I would think the senior center to have that would be a priority because there's a lot of people who can't hear very well when oh yeah um so I would think that that would be a priority and then the website yeah you know the website it all it all depends on what you want to achieve it's not a hundred percent accessible but it's not the worst thing I've ever seen I have to tell you I can usually find what I want if I look long enough um but um the other thing I think those traffic lights are a big issue the lack of maintenance of those traffic lights yeah and and his his attitude toward them well the public doesn't like them so you know I turn them off patrolies um so I for me that's an issue me too for me that's really an issue and I think the assisted listening in the senior center I mean it's just me um the website has issues um for disability I don't know if you're able to read it physically Elise are you the what is it the the town website I haven't been on it in a long time so I can tell you okay yeah you know I did find the no I asked I went to Siri and told her to get me what I wanted I just couldn't there's a lot of stuff on there there is a lot it's it's not it's not the cleanest thing in the world but I can say it's it's very busy I've looked through worse when you can't even push the buttons and nothing ever happens I mean on the website this website you can usually get what you want but you have to figure out how to find it yeah it's the figuring out it's not intuitive but it's um I don't know what do other people think I think it's important that they update the website it it should not be it should not be accessible yeah well I mean it's very difficult to follow the website actually I agree with all of you um not that I find it difficult visually but it is like I want I always pay my real estate taxes and my utility bills online and I always have difficulty where did I click this what do I need and once you put the account number there you can just get in there but it's that's right the the problem with the website is not so much how it the the way the the accessibility features for me it's the intuitive features whoever wrote it isn't thinking like the public thinks and I'm not sure I'm not sure that buying software is going to fix that because it's who whoever's whose ideas decided how you get from point A to point B are the problem with the website yep all right I agree it's not user friendly no we're running out of time but I I know Marty raised her hand so why don't we have Marty speak and then I we're gonna I personally need to move on maybe we can finish this next week anyway I would recommend that we that we ask the town to buy the software um currently the website I understand doesn't meet ADA and that poses a risk to the town um you don't want to deal with an ADA complaint because we and there are people out there that are going after um institutions that don't have an accessible website so you need to meet the letter of the law yep that's just my opinion okay but again if we're gonna buy a website if we're gonna have anything to do with it the DAAC has to have some input because I can tell you there are lots of companies and I've dealt with them that say we used XYZ software we did all the compliance we did this we did that and I said that's nice it doesn't work let me talk to the programmers and a few times I have gotten to the programmers and they go oh yeah I see what I did wrong but but the the public relations arm is we used this and we comply with this you know and they don't so the the software is not going to solve the problem it's the beginning of solving the problem but it's not gonna solve the problem all right folks well uh so we do have a meeting next week the 20th right um and I will send out an agenda with the zoom information um once that's um okay once that's up all right well thanks and have thanks folks thank you all right and Maureen you'll send me that in the next hour and then I'll play with it today and send it out to you tonight perfect thank you okay thank you