 All right, so Chair Hogan, at your say so, we're ready to go. All right. Good evening, everyone. My name is Brennan Hogan, Chair, calling this April meeting of the Public Works Commission to order at 6.32. Welcome. I would say, because I think I just heard Director Spencer saying we have a warrants public forum right after we approve the agenda, people are welcome to speak at that time. We also have public comments associated with individual agenda items later in the meeting. I would ask you to keep your remarks to three minutes or less, either one, you're welcome to speak on any topic at the first public forum if you're not able to stay to the end, and we'll just ask if you speak multiple times to have them be on different topics or different agenda items, please. With that said, I will entertain a motion on the agenda itself. So moved. We have a motion from Commissioner Barr. Thank you. I'll second the motion. All right. Second from Vice-Chair O'Neill-Vanco. Is there any discussion around that motion? All right, go to a vote on favor if you say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Our agenda is passed. Moving forward to public forum. We have a sign-up sheet at the microphone here. Welcome to do a move forward to make sure we get your name for our records. Cheryl. Okay. Sarah, would you like to speak on the side or are you on the other side? I'm thinking I'll wait to the number five. Fair enough. I was in the room interested in speaking on the general public forum period. That is fine. Can we do a quick check on the phone, Mr. Golding, and anyone interested in speaking at this time? Yes. Chair Hogan, for those joining us on the phone, if you are interested in speaking now or during subsequent public forums, please use the raise your hand feature. Right now, Sharon Buscher, you're first in queue. Yes. Hi. I can hardly hear you. I'm Sharon Buscher. Did you say, did you unmute me? Can you hear me? Are you able to hear me? I can't tell. Yes. Your head is shaking. Thank you. Thank you. So thanks. I'm going to speak later on East Avenue, but I wanted to bring to your attention. I don't know how many of you drive. I do. I use the parking lot off of Main Street by the fire station and, you know, beyond, behind Memorial Auditorium. And that has been, first of all, it was an eyesore when I was on the city council. I had the mayor walk with me in 2019 and pointed out how dangerous it was. Now it's really dangerous. I just parked there a couple of days ago and there's a lot of area that you can't park in. And visitors park there. They don't go to the parking structures. They park there. And I'm almost embarrassed. They kind of, they look at me and say, what's going on? Because there's also problems sometimes with the kiosks that are there. But it's not, if you think that we're giving visitors a good idea about our city by looking at that parking lot, using it or using the kiosk, we're not. It looks like we're falling apart, we're decaying. And I don't understand why it's been neglected for now at least four years. It's dangerous and there are cones up to alert people not to, you know, drive into a significant hole. It's more than a pothole. So I'm letting the commission know, and I really wish that some of you would look at it. If you concur, then I really think there needs to be something done in an interim measure, no matter what the final use of that lot is going to be. Thank you so much for listening. I appreciate it. Thank you. Michael Nadell, you're next in queue. Hello. I believe I am unmuted. Yes, we can hear you. Thank you. Welcome. Awesome. Thank you. I'm interested in talking about the tubs and the greenway. I live on Peru Street, I'm a resident of Burlington, you know, employer, landlord, homeowner, taxpayer. The tubs that are along the greenway in Burlington are unmaintained and graffiti strewn. They're all out of place since the snow plows whacked in them all winter long. So I'm hoping someone can address these tubs. They're kind of these round, plastic, Soviet era looking planters that are allegedly supposed to act as bump outs for the greenway to control the speed, which, you know, arguably that the more prettier bump outs on say Decatur Street seem to be effective without being an eyesore like the tubs. I also think that these tubs, since they're placed in the old north end, they seem to be graffiti trainers for the rest of the town, since they're, you know, unmaintained municipal property, popular site for taggers, and all the taggers seem to use that knowledge of small tagging to go to the bigger tagging. So I'm hoping something can be done about these temporary tubs. They were temporary, I think six or seven years ago. So hoping that they don't become permanent. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Joshua Spencer. We've had some folks just come in the room, so we might want to do a second check just to make sure. Yeah, for sure. We want to speak in this round. We are during a public forum. If anyone in the room is interested in speaking at this time, please step forward to the table. Welcome. My name is Sandy Wheeler. I'm involved with Patagonia Burlington and Ski Rack and I'm on the Parking Advisory Committee for the Great Streets Project. And I see there's a spot later for commenting on that, but I wanted to address something that came out of the most recent well-attended meeting at the, at City Hall, where I experienced a lot of our, a lot of our small businesses that are providing personal services and other commerce, whether it's retail or it's haircutting or it's nails or stuff like this. Many of them voiced that they have clientele, some that can't walk long distances, that they really depend on parking to participate. And I'm concerned because the, the, the, the communication on March 15th to yourselves from Laura Wheelock talked about the, the study that concluded, the second phase of the parking study concluded that the, there was enough supply to satisfy the parking demand. I'm in the third pair, fourth paragraph, for the loss of 67 spaces within a five minute walk of the, of the Main Street corridor, which is going to be six blocks that are in the, in the construction zone. There is ample parking to make up for that. And I'm not, even though I work and live here for a few years, I'm not exactly sure where that is. And I would invite the commission to join me in exploring where they are and understanding, is it just weekends? Is it just after five? Is it, is it during the day? And because I think not only do I need to be educated, but businesses are partners in the success of this project. It's in our interest, and we're very interested in communicating to our customers and our vendors and the people that, that know and trust us where they're going to go. And we need to know that and be able to express that before we're dirt. And one of the original comments that happened tonight was about people's concern about the parking lot at Winooski, South Winooski in Maine. Oh my goodness. That's outside. What about inside? And I think that I challenge the city and all of us to work together. How are we going to continue to ensure that we're making substantial improvements in wayfinding and in lighting and in the safety and the cleanliness of our parking, our streets and our parking facilities. Because if we have this capacity, we want to make it delicious, welcoming, safe, and easy to find. And that's going to mean some wayfinding, which is part of the, in this memo, there are six, eight bulleted recommendations about what it would take to make this a successful project. And one of them is, where are you? And I think you should be aware it's not in the bag that this is going to be successful. Even though so many of us feel there are many positive parts of the project, execution is big. Thanks. Thank you. Anyone else in the room for a public comment? Sure. Welcome. Hello. My name is Meg McGovern. I work for Donahue & Associates. I'm a commercial real estate broker. I'm also on the parking advisory committee. My office is at 65 Main Street, and I actually happen to be part of a UPP lot. That is a shared lot. So during the day, we park there, and at night and weekends, it's open. So Xanny is open to share that, speaking to other businesses that we have concerns. They all have concerns about loss of parking, obviously. We'd like to have solutions when there's an issue. If we're focusing on moving people to garages, it's really sad to say, but I've moved more people out of Burlington office spaces due to concerns. Sure, that reality. I know as having that garage and the open lot, so do UPP lots of other things at night during the day, landlords aren't going to want to take less money, reduce the rates to make it like onsite, unless the same partners of them, maybe to make it equal, that would be a suggestion that I would just make you aware of. If we can start training people to park in different areas, I know where all the parking spot is. I mean, commercial estate, I know where to park. We just really need that to be simple for everyone else, and why not? Come and really spend some in our streets better. Thank you. Anyone else for a public comment this time? Welcome. Hello. My name is Kelly Devine. I'm the executive director of the Burlington Business Association. I'm also a member of the Main Street's Great Streets Parking Advisory Committee. When I was reading over this memo, I just wanted to make sure I communicated some things to the Commission, because I know you're considering some decisions, both for temporary and permanent parking, as related to this project. I wasn't able to attend the public forum that was held in April, but I had staff there. And I feel like in some of the documentation I've read from the Commission that there's been a representation that there aren't concerns among the business community about both the construction period, as well as the loss of parking spaces on Main Street. There are absolutely concerns. We heard, for example, from a particular salon that's located there that relocated. They spoke about this at this event. They relocated from College Street because of construction there. And then they moved to Maine, and they talked about having elderly customers. So we're hearing concerns like that. It's parking matters, and it's scary for people when they lose parking. It's especially scary for downtown businesses to lose parking when we're in the midst of a public safety crisis. We are already starting to see businesses move out of town because of the public safety crisis. We had Burton closed down just this past week. I know of a few others that are coming. I really can't say the names, but you'll hear about them shortly. They're leaving because of concerns for themselves and their staff about public safety, about retail theft. But we're talking about adding on top of the layer of what's been a challenge in a couple of years, a few years of construction, and a few years of construction also following. We work together to make sure that we do what we can to make the because we live together. As a member of the parking advisory committee, it was most surprising to me on this memo that was sent to you tonight, page two or three, two or three, was to see recommended parking changes that I just have to let you know didn't come before the parking advisory committee on any meeting that I attended, and we didn't give any feedback on that. Folks may or may not know that I worked in concert with APW for several years to help improve and modify the entire downtown parking system. So I'm very familiar with how it operates. These rates decisions that were made, the type of meters that were chosen came out of a large and long time coming downtown parking management study that's published and available online and was accepted by the public for extensive public work. So I have some concerns about those as well. One of the things that came out of our parking advisory study was to make sure the changes to parking rates or parking durations are based on data. And we did a lot of changes to the system to make sure we could get that. I think the credit card accepting meters provide data to your parking team about duration. I see something here about encouraging turnover on street parking to support businesses along the street. I meet with Jeff Padgett once a month. I haven't heard him express any concerns to me about lack of turnover in that location. Maybe there is, but we can get data on that. We also get a lot of data from Park Mobile, which talks about the duration of stay and how long people are there. So if we're going to make any changes like that, if we're going to increase rates, we have a formula for that that was established at that time. And I believe that that's what we should use. If we change the rates between Battery and Self Union to $1.50 an hour, that would be the only part of the city that is reflected that way. Because right now the only place that charges $1.50 an hour is what we call the downtown core, which is bordered by Pine Street, Sulkinewski, Maine, and Pearl. That's the only place in town that it's $1.50 an hour other than garages that a city operated. So to me, these changes are important. Implement a three hour maximum parking time limit between Battery and Self Union. That would mean that Maine Street is differently than every other zone in the downtown in terms of parking limits. We got rid of parking limits in the downtown core to encourage turnover. In 2015, every data set that I have seen says that that's working to encourage turnover. The parking expert that we use said that the best way to encourage turnover, if we have people who work in businesses that are parking in those spaces all day and paying $1.50 an hour, we should definitely do something about it. But right now, I don't know about that trend. They certainly go to places like brown top meters, which are designed for that. Those have a 10 hour limit of $0.40 an hour. I know a lot of business people or people who work downtown that look for those meters, we helped working with Chapin and the team to create an interactive map so people can look and see exactly where those parking opportunities are that will fit with them. So, just wanted to say, there is concern amongst business community. We will get that to you before the 28th. I just found out about that deadline a few days ago, but I know there is. We'll get it to you in writing. We'll perhaps have some more, well, you're not going to have another meeting, but we can get it to you in writing. And I would encourage folks to think long and hard about these proposed changes before moving forward with them. To try to get some data from your parking, your system director of parking to establish that this is the way to go. Because I can tell you right now that the businesses on Main Street that are already concerned about parking and about post-construction, when they hear the parking rates are going up, in some cases for $0.40 cents or $1.50 an hour, it's not going to be very well received. And I just wanted to make sure if you've received any memos that seem to indicate that these changes were somehow reviewed or approved by the parking advisor, that's not in my experience as one of the only three private sector people on that group. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else for public comment at this time? Anyone on the phone? All right. Close public forum. Move forward to our Consent Agenda. There are four items on the Consent Agenda, our March minutes, Pearl Street and George Street crosswalk, parking adjustment, school street yield sign, and a North Street and Rose Street parking adjustments. Motion to approve Consent Agenda. We have a motion from Commissioner Barr. Thank you. I'll second the motion. Second from Vice-Chair on Yovavenko. Thank you for that. Chair Hogan, could I ask just one quick question about the yield sign? Please. So this is item C. I just had a quick question about the location of the yield sign on School Street. I run through this neighborhood all the time and I'm just wondering, it seems to me that that yield sign is going to be really hard to see on the right side of the street with all the cars that are parked there. Right. And so in my experience, drivers going on to School Street heading north that way usually drive in the middle anyway because there is rarely traffic coming south that way. Like on that, you know, on School Street right there. So I guess I'm wondering if it would make sense to put the yield sign maybe on the triangle or anything like that. Thanks for the question. So we can do that. That's something that we may do. I think the traffic crew, we've discussed it and how we're going to configure the yield sign traditionally with a, you know, according to MUTCD, it's supposed to be on the right hand side. But I think we're, you know, we'll take a look at the site conditions and make the best decision based on that. But that's great observation. Thank you. I just want to clarify. I appreciate it. Thank you. We have a motion that's been seconded. Any other discussion around the motion? All right. Go to a vote then, please. All in favor. Say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? All right. Content agenda passes unanimously. Thank you. Moving forward, item five, East Avenue Traffic Comming. Welcome. Hi, everybody. My name is Julia Ursaki. I'm a Public Works Transportation Engineer. And I'm just going to pull up a quick presentation if you bear with me for a moment to join the Zoom here. All right. So we are here tonight to talk about our East Avenue Traffic Comming project. Just some super general background. This project, the scope is to design and evaluate different traffic calming features along East Avenue to reduce vehicle speeds. And just a little bit of background about this project. We originally received a traffic calming request from the neighborhood in 2017. In 2021, we installed the rectangular rapid flashing beacon at the Biladu Court and East Ave intersection and crosswalk there. Then in December of 2021, this design process kicked off for the traffic calming project that we're doing now. Then throughout 2022, we had a neighborhood meeting in February, another in August where we presented these concepts, got feedback, and ultimately landed on the concept that you'll see tonight, which is the same concept that we presented to the Ward 1 NPA in December. So the project area is East Avenue. And on the southern end, it starts at Kerrigan Drive, kind of that UVM entrance. And originally, the project was going to go all the way up to Colchester Ave. But after we heard some concerns about the parking impact that the chicanes we're going to have on the northern block, we ended up taking that block out where speeds actually weren't as high as they are in the southern corridor. So there's two different types of traffic calming features we're proposing on East Ave. The first is this kind of median chicane configuration where there's these like raised, curved, concrete medians. And you'll see the layout in a couple of slides, but there are three of these along East Ave. And laying these out is what is requiring us to remove some of the parking along East Ave to accommodate these. The other traffic calming feature are these raised crosswalks. This is one that was built last year on Mansfield Ave. So there's two of these, one at Billiducourt and the other at University Road. So now I'm just going to walk through quickly the conceptual plan that we have. This is starting at the southern end. So Kerrigan Drive is just off the screen to the left here and UVM is up on top. So this is the first median chicane configuration here. This section between Kerrigan and East Village currently has 21 parking spaces and we're proposing removing seven here, retaining 14 to fit this median chicane. So moving north between East Village and Billiducourt is another chicane. So these are spaced to achieve speeds of 25 miles per hour maximum. So between East Village and Billiduc, we're removing three parking spaces and retaining two of them. Next up is the raised crosswalk at Billiduc, where so we're keeping the RFB and then there's also going to be this raised crosswalk now. No parking change between Billiduc and Case. And then the final block between Case Parkway and University Road has one more median chicane, which requires removing three of the parking spaces and retaining four still. And then finally at University Road there's the last raised crosswalk. And we're also realigning that crosswalk a little bit and doing some work to create an ADA compliant landing on both sides. So just in general where we are at the project, we're obviously here tonight seeking your approval for the traffic regulation changes. We're still working on it. So in the memo, we'll lay out exactly what we're proposing on which blocks and we did two parking occupancy counts, one on a Wednesday and another on a Saturday in January. This was when UVM was back in session. So, you know, renters and whoever else lives on East Ave were definitely back and what this data told us is there was still capacity with the existing on-street parking even with the proposed removal to accommodate the amount of people that are parking on the street. So thank you. Great. Thank you. I'll bring it back to the commission for discussion around this item. Commissioner Fox. Thanks, Julia. I guess on the counts I'm wondering, you know, I hear you it's super residential right there and theoretically there aren't a lot of people parking necessarily to walk up that giant to UVM or UVM MC, but I don't know, is there any sort of previous data from this neighborhood in terms of parking counts that are not taken in the winter? I'm thinking about like lake monsters games and stuff like that that happened in the summer. Yeah, thank you for that question. I should have mentioned that East Ave is residential parking only. Thank you. Yep, that's helpful. And then on the traffic calming measures, I know that there are sort of like brick medians in there now. So those would theoretically be gone and everything seems like it's going to be correct, like in terms of where those medians are and the bump outs. So those kind of flush medians that are there now, some of them we're just going to let stay and fade out just because without repaving the whole street, it'll be hard to remove them without kind of their scar just being left there regardless. So the center line is kind of staying in the same place as it is now. And we're just going to let those kind of flush median red painted areas fade out over time. But I also know that a lot of the units or houses there have long driveways. And so I mean, I have to say that I personally think that there's probably ample parking. I'd be interested to hear from the neighbors that are here that might want to speak out about it. But I think that this is good because traffic always speeds through there. So the measures I think are really, really needed. So I appreciate it. Thanks. Thank you. Vice-chair Neva-Vaco. Thank you. So one question I have on the ADA landing there across from, is it the Biladu one? Is that a gravel? Is that path gravel? I haven't walked on that in like a long time. I usually, it's dirt. Yeah, it's dirt. It's an informal path up to the medical center. So to have an ADA landing there, does that mean, who owns that land? Is that going to be paved? It just, like there's nothing like the path to nowhere. If you're having an ADA compliant landing pad. Where are we going? Yeah, so I believe the city has an MOU with UVM. That is UVM property beyond the, you know, East Ave right of way. So there are no current plans to like formalize or pave that path up the hill. We have in the past talked about putting a sidewalk on the west side of East Ave to eventually connect to this landing. We do know a lot of people are using this crossing even though there's no ADA compliant place to walk on the west side. So, yeah, I mean, it's gotten better. I remember like decades ago it was, we called it the Rambo Trail. It was like a bit of a bushwhacking. Right. I just, you know, feel like if the city is putting this in is the assumption then, and I don't even know if that slope would be anywhere near like ADA compliant for a wheelchair to go down. But good to know that that's UVM property and this is perhaps future proofing. Am I without putting words in your mouth? I also think that, you know, having a receiving facility that is a safe place to wait once you've come down the path is safety enhancement over what exists today. Absolutely. Thank you. Okay. And then a question about kind of the chicanes and the bump outs kind of referencing one of the haulers earlier about kind of maintenance and snow plows blowing through them. You know, just wondering about the space in the lane between the, you know, that kind of wiggle between the bump out. I'm looking in particular between East Village Drive and Billidow. This is just a picture I have on my map. You know, what kind of navigation the plow is going to have? Is that a regular plow can go through that? A smaller truck, you know, just making sure that when we have this that we're able to maintain that we have the equipment to maintain the roads and that infrastructure. Yes, absolutely. So the tapers that that we've designed are all compliant with the MUTCD in terms of plowing because this isn't like one just one pinch point where the plow would be stuck between two curbs. There is a little bit more space for not just plows but also emergency vehicles to navigate around them. So it's not like they're going to be stuck between two curbs that are only, you know, 12 feet apart. At no point is there actually less than I think it's 15 feet of road for either for either direction. Okay. And do we have anything like that in the city that fire trucks have had to kind of know? That's a great question. Nothing specifically like this. So this is new. So what we did to kind of confirm that the geometry would work was we set up this exact geometry with barrels and cones. And we had the fire truck or the fire department come through with their biggest truck to see how it would work. And they were able to make it through. And so we feel pretty confident that the truck will work. And hit the turn if they're coming, if they're heading south on East, south on East Avenue to turn left. And to the side streets. Yeah, like put your actuary. Yes, they did test that as well. And they made it. Okay. All right. That's all I have. Thanks so much. Thank you. When did the last communication go out to the side street addresses. So I think it was like on April 1 beginning of a month, we mailed out letters letting everybody know about this meeting and the changes that we were proposing to all property owners and residents along the staff and adjacent side streets. So that was the last communication that was sweet. And I guess before construction happens, there'll be a similar notice that and a little lawn thingies have been going around. Specific projects like paving sidewalk and then some other kind of specialized projects or meetings, but certainly I think Julie and I will coordinate on the best ways from porch forum. BT alert for traffic impacts. Green belt signage if we can and some other options. Cool. The engineer himself actually rocked. Actually, yeah, get speed. Where are we wanted? I mean, the memo referenced a traffic count, speak out what the average speed was. Is it policy for DPW to do another study after after a certain amount of time after this project is completed to sort of measure the impact of the speed. That is something that I believe is in our new traffic calming manual that we definitely want to keep a close eye on. So, you know, maybe the year after this is built, we'll look to put out another counter. Okay, great. Yeah, you mentioned the pilot that you did with the fire department and with DPW staff. I just really support doing pilot projects for any of these types of things and would just encourage for any other project that would do similar projects, hopefully for a longer amount of time than one day to sort of measure the impacts to the community. And then the last was just on the actual language itself on the city code on line 21. It says on the east side of or on the east side of East Avenue beginning at East Village Drive and extending south to the driveway for 154 East Ave. I'm wondering if it's supposed to say north of the driveway or south of the driveway. You're right. I actually meant I thought I had changed that. I wasn't sure which way is better. But it raises it but north to the driveway or south. Thank you. Oh, the city attorney will repeat this before. So thank you. All right, Laura Wheeler Public Works to speak to the follow up speed study. This effort has concluded the length of the work to stop at the university road, mostly for the fact that there was a lot of comments from neighborhood residents about parking removal and questioning whether or not the measures that were proposing would be successful. So we actually had broken our effort into two phases. Phase one being what you're hearing about tonight. Phase two is a follow up speed study of the corridor to understand if the measures are working. If this effort was enough to impact the speed on the last block and if not then we would pick that back up. Great. Awesome. Thank you. That's all I had. Thank you. Great. Thank you. You got my question on the north south for the ordinance line 294. Thank you for that. Yeah, I think I'm good. One comment on the data collection. I'm going to sport of this. I think it's an exciting plan in a place that needs the calming. We're curious on the data collection if you've got a sense of like overnight usage. Because we've got a seven and eight. We've got a nine a.m. and a seven p.m. I could see criticism saying that's not necessarily reflective of people that shove off at eight a.m. to get to work or something. That's true. It is always hard to pick the right times to do the parking counts. I think we figured by seven p.m. Most people at least who kind of commute to work and then come home would have already come home and parked for the night. But without, you know, a continuous counter, we really have no way of knowing. Sure. Yeah. I understood in that. Yeah. Those are obviously more challenging times for our data, our manual data collectors to be out doing it. But you do have a weekends nine a.m. and seven p.m. as well. Thank you. Nothing further on my ends. I will open up to public comment on this item this time. First we'll check anyone in the room interested in speaking on this East Avenue traffic calming. Welcome. Joel Kalata. I live Ward one. I commute on the East Avenue on my bicycle all the time to go shopping for pet food at the Petco. Really looking forward to this traffic calming. Traffic is pretty crazy everywhere. The amount of speeds and just like to voice some support if we can slow things down even slower than 25. I feel like 15 would be more comfortable, which I know is a much bigger discussion than a particular project. But being in those bike lanes, having someone go 25 miles an hour past you feels like a death threat sometimes. Which I know isn't their intention. It's just very tight corridor. But that's all I wanted to say for this. I'm just excited for this to get going. Thank you. That's her. My name is Kevin McKigny. I live at 210 East Avenue. I own 206 East Avenue. I own 220 East Avenue. A little frustrating. It's the only time I ever heard of this was April 1st. Trust me. I've lived there for 35 years. I open all my mail, especially when it comes in parallel to public words. And the only thing I could find is it's contradicting between the one that came on the 1st of April and what is being shown here as far as what's going to be taken away in front of each house. So I guess this was printed or this came out in December. Okay. Is it going to be this or is it going to be this? So the graphic that's on the mail is meant to be very conceptual and just by block not necessarily the parking that's leaving. Okay. Because it doesn't match. So I want to clarify that. So it's definitely this. Another concern is the city made me move. A curb cut at 206 East Avenue. This doesn't show that. I'm not going to make a difference in the retained parking. Has it already been moved? Yeah, I moved it when they told me to, which was a year and a half ago. Oh, so yeah, but it doesn't show it on here. We have gotten surveyed by our consultants. Oh, since this was made. And I guess just clear clarify what's a full curb reveal? Is that straight up or is that bang? Straight up. You'll be straight up. And I do occasionally. I'm just going to throw this out. I backed my trailers into 220. I'm sorry, 206. They're properly stored in the garage. I'm just throwing this out. It's going to make it a lot more difficult. And then one of my tenants who has a proper parking per parking pass. Is going to have to park way farther down the road. But that's just want to throw that out. I guess that was what I wanted to know. That's going to be this or this. And hopefully there's a little bit better. Warning is when the construction is going to start. I mean, you're going to tell all of us, right? I guess I just didn't get it. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else in the room on this item? I was trying to change it last, but I know Sharon's coming on. Yeah. So I'm also very excited about the project. My name is Sarah flash. Can you use the mic just to make sure we capture? Yes, I should know better. Thank you. No problem. I've lived off of East Avenue or on East Avenue since 2005. I've ridden my bicycle on the street almost every day all year around since 2005. So I'm extremely familiar with the street. I happened to do the original survey in 2017 where I knocked on every single door on East Avenue. To ask them their feelings about traffic calming. It turns out that 97% of the people that answered answered in the affirmative, they would appreciate traffic calming. I've got the original survey with me. I'm happy to share it with you. The results. I think that I'm guessing that the major, if you call it a pinch point or what you'd call it, are the concerns about removing parking. And I guess, I don't know if you call it philosophical or probably not philosophical. A practical way to potentially resolve objections about removing parking is to make accommodations. I know the city's made accommodations in the past for people that have had sincere issues or concerns about parking removal. I'm guessing that accommodations could be made. Honestly, I don't feel it's going to be necessary. I happened to agree with the DPW's assessments and parking counts. On an anecdotal basis for the last week, I've been doing a count from Kerrigan to East Village Drive just about every day, two or three times a day. And I happened to come up with realizing looking at the numbers tonight exactly the same numbers. I actually got a number of three. People parked on East Avenue from about eight in the morning to about eight at night every single day, just three people. Tonight on my way down, I actually counted four for the first time. In my zeal to get this project going, and I thought, okay, what can we do to assure people that actually there is plenty of parking there. I happened to do a survey today, which I'm happy to hand off to you, that relates to the onsite parking for each and every resident from Catamount Drive to University Road. So it may or may not be pertinent, and I'm perfectly fine if it's not helpful, but I thought you could see with the high zeal, there's plenty of parking on East Avenue. So yeah, I think I already stated, every house in the project has onsite parking, every single house. And I'm giving you the numbers for each house and location. These are approximate. I realize that they're probably, this isn't my bailiwick. I'm not an expert, but I just want to get the, I may be adding too much information. So I think that's about it, other than sort of getting, again, maybe more philosophical. But again, being practical, getting 25 miles an hour or lower on any street becomes literally life-saving. So I think I'm aware that hearing bike discussions earlier, there's a fair amount of people that are having awareness in this room of what it's like to be on our streets. But whether you're a pedestrian or a bicyclist or even an auto driver, apparently, and I don't have the statistics with me, but I've heard them over the last 15 years, that 25 miles an hour happens to be a critical point that you get above that, and people get seriously injured in crashes. So I think bringing it down from 40 or 35 or whatever the excess speed is that it's on the street that's been documented, down to 25, it's absolutely critical. So here's maybe the last point that, and it feels emotional, but still it feels real to me that my life, it feels like, is literally in your hands. And so, again, I know that's an extreme statement and I can be extreme, but you can probably hear the excitement I have for this project, and I've been looking forward to it going for a long time. And I feel honestly the DPW and the people that they hired to do the work for putting this together, very professional. I'm really pretty darn pleased with the city and the slow but consistent movement that we've been making towards making our streets safer, and I hope we go further and thanks for everybody's good work. Thank you. Thanks for the council. We'll make sure this get posted with our material. All right. To the phones. Thanks, Mr. Goulding. Sharon Busher, you're next on the queue. Hi, good evening again. Sharon Busher. I live at 52 East Avenue. So when the intersect in the section that is not going to be impacted by any parking being taken away. That section, that section of East Avenue has some of the oldest houses, and they don't have adequate off street parking. Some of them barely have any parking at all. And that was one of the rationales when the conversation began around the elimination of some parking. So just so you know, some of the homes are very small, but they have still become investment properties. And so have more people in them than they ever had before. And with more people, the reality is more cars. So we need the spaces that we have in order to accommodate those people. Fortunately enough, someone mentioned about providing parking, you know, having businesses or somebody provide parking. So the old state lab, which now is owned by the hospital has a parking lot. And when there's a snow, when there's a parking ban, whether it's snow or, you know, street sweeping, they allow us to park there as long as we get our cars out by 7am. So that's the safety net for the people who have no other place to park but on the street. Having said all that, I am, I've lived here since 1985 and have watched the conversion of homes to investment properties. And that has added cars and stresses to the street and demands that weren't there before. I concur with many of the neighbors who said the speed is out of control and we need to do something. And so I'm speaking in support of the plan. I think PPW did a good job in providing meetings where residents could give input. And they were responsive, answered questions and responded to some of the concerns that were brought forward. So initially the process did start off in the wrong foot, but that's a long time ago. And it's been on the right path for quite a while. So I want to say I think that it's been improved as far as the time that PPW took up the request and now when the, when you're ready to go to construction. It's a shorter window of time. It's not perfect, but it allowed dialogue from the residents who make the request. And I think that's so important that this is our city and we should be asking the experts to help us and collectively make improvements for cars and pedestrians and bicyclists. So I think this is our best shot at it. Having, having told you all of that, I have a couple of statements that I worked for 50 years in transfusion medicine. So, you know, the place where, you know, level one trauma center. So I'm very key to emergency vehicles. And I was concerned with the brief amount of time that that the cones, etc. were put in the street to evaluate how emergency vehicles could navigate. Ambulances are smaller than some of the fire trucks, obviously. But when you add snow to that, I'm not sure. And I still, I talked to the director, the chief and Spencer, who he used to be a city counselor and actually served with me years ago, and has been very willing to entertain comments that I make. Try not to abuse my knowing him, but try to give feedback or raise concerns and I was concerned because UVM's ambulance is housed at the end of East Avenue and they use East Avenue as a regular route. And he says, they do use East Avenue, but some of them go up Karrigan Drive, some of them, you know, circumvent East Avenue, but there are some that use it. And minutes matter when you're trying to save someone's life. So I'm really concerned about that. And I am going to I'm so glad that some of the commissioners say we need to evaluate it after we put it in place, not only to evaluate improvements for bicyclists and and pedestrians and vehicles but for the emergency vehicles. I'm worried because the lanes. I don't know where cars are going to move when it's congested if an emergency vehicle has to get through. I still haven't really wrapped my head around that. I'm not a traffic engineer. I've been assured that it's going to be okay. I should believe them, but I am. I'm a little concerned and a little doubtful. I want that you all to be proven right and me to be wrong on this issue. But I needed to let you know that the last statement is something that my son actually asked the stop sign that is at University Road on East Avenue. Is there what in your proposal and I don't remember that stop sign will remain, I believe I need that confirmed. Okay, thank you. But is there a way to make it flashing. I'm sure the house that lives right next to stop signs going to be taking my name in vain, but it seems that either people. I'll tell you one other thing, but people don't seem to notice it or ignore it. I've called someone out a couple of days ago because I have a community garden on the other side of the street. And they flew right through it and I put my hand out and said stop sign. They stopped for me to cross the road, but I don't think they got the connection. We thought I was telling him to stop for me, which I was but but I was pointing to the stop sign so wanted to know how we can make that more visible. And my last comment is that I think that for those people who travel the road on a regular basis. When we were in a different time before the pandemic, and before we had identified all of the injustices around inequities regarding race. We used to have a police person come and park and University Road and anyways give tickets of people flew through that stop sign that has gone away for a number of reasons, but without that unpredictability, people just don't seem to care anymore. I don't think we're the only stop sign that gets ignored. But I wanted to share that and see if there's a way to make that a little more visible. Anyways, I want to thank DPW and all the end traffic engineers and everybody for interacting with the people on East Avenue. We felt heard. We felt like we mattered. And I want to thank you for that. Thank you. I was on the phone. Let's call in the room. Okay, in that case, I'll bring it back to the commission. We're seeking action on this item. Motion to approve. We have a motion to step staffs recommendation from Commissioner Barr. Thank you for that. I second that second from Commissioner Damiani. Thank you. Is there any discussion around that motion? All right, let's go to a vote. Please all in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye for myself. Any opposed. All right, the motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Moving forward. Item six, Main Street, Great Streets, parking changes. Welcome. It's just me. Thank you, and I have to see everybody's face again. So I'm Laura Wheelock with Public Works. This is a meeting two of three for our series this spring. I'm here to go over tonight the on street parking regulation changes that we look to effectuate as Main Street completes. It aligns with the approved concept plan. Also look to go over the temporary parking mitigation strategies that we're looking to put in place during construction. So with that, I'm going to share my screen, give everybody an overview. I'm just waiting for it to go to presentation. So tonight we're going to go over a little bit of data about the parking spaces on Main Street under the approved concept plan. Go through the temporary construction parking that was part of the memo and packet. Go through permanent parking changes. Really, it's the curbside management of the approved concept. Talk a little bit about our outreach and our feedback so far and the overall schedule. It's important to highlight tonight is just informational. We would look to come back in May to start effectuating these changes. So the project study area actually starts at around April Cornell on Main Street and extends all the way up to South Willard now as it relates to things that this commission will have in front of it. The total project as it relates to the reconstruction also now includes portions of Lower Church Street where we will be reconstructing and realigning the ravine sewer. So really we're looking at a little bit more than eight blocks of total work area, eight of them having some substantial work on them. So here are some of the nitty-gritty numbers that I want to start so we can have these in the front of our mind as we go through the rest of this material. So here is the count by block of the existing spaces on Main Street and the proposed spaces on Main Street. And this is everything that we are impacting. So we actually start with the block of Main Street that goes between Battery and College which is the block in front of Main Street Landing. It is actually Main Street there. Looking to remove three parking spaces then we move through the rest of the corridor from Battery all the way to Union Street with the various different removals based on the change from diagonal to parallel parking. And then indicating some of the work that we are doing between Union and South Willard where we look to remove a few spaces for a bump out on the bike lane but also look to make better use of the parking opportunity on the south side of Willard where the school is nights and weekends. Not counting that in my numbers here but it is certainly a new opportunity for parking in the corridor. And then also on the lower Church Street section most specifically immediately adjacent to Main Street is where these changes will be effectuated. What we are looking at now is a total number of spaces within this enlarged area of 202 and we will be retaining or making up to the 135. So this speaks to a net change in parking of 67 spaces. This is the number that was used in the downtown study that was presented to you as a draft last month. And so that is kind of our block by block numbers. This is based on the concept plan that was approved by the City Council in May of 22. So jumping into the temporary parking changes really at this time we are focused on the west end of Main Street. This is an area where we found some pretty good opportunities to densify or add on street parking. The spaces that are listed come with the opportunity of up to 10 spaces along Battery Street. We have performed an intersection study and found that the right turn slash through lane is not necessary northbound for operation of the signal. In the final Main Street condition we are proposing to have it be removed. It is still dependent on however the Battery Street corridor study comes out but it is not necessary for operation of that intersection. We are looking especially during construction to make use of that space by taking some of the adding three spaces south of Main Street adding up to seven spaces north of Main Street. Additionally we are looking at South Champlain on the west side between Main and College. Right now there are two bus parking spaces. They are long term bus parking. They are listed as three hours. This is an opportunity a space where tour buses will park to drop off for like an event to echo. GMT also uses it as a break area or if they need to line up another bus to make up a route. What we would want to do during construction because we expect on street parking spaces along Main Street to have significant impact during construction at different phases. We want to provide other available nearby opportunity for that loss of parking and so we think that in the duration of Main Street's construction this space is best used as on street parking and not as a bus stop. So we would ask that South Champlain Street be made one way northbound and parking, metered parking be added to the west side. We do need the one way condition as the long term parking condition makes the street very narrow and that the opening in between is not comfortable enough for two way flow. So what happens to those two bus locations? We would propose for the duration of the construction that one space on Pearl Street be repurposed converting three metered space to one bus parking space adjacent to the Acme Glass location. And then the other space be located on College Street repurposing one ADA space and one loading space that was put there for the functionality of the former YMCA. Those spots are highly underutilized currently after the YMCA has moved. So similar to the condition that exists on South Champlain these would be three hour time limited spaces available to both GMT and other transit. Do we want to take questions on the temporary versus the permanent or do you want me to give the entire spiel? Take a break and mix it up. Okay. Sure. Any commissioner questions on what we've seen so far? These are proposed temporary changes just during the construction. Yes. Keeping in mind the construction is likely to be years. Most likely? Yes. After this is going to be also next month. To tie back to some of the information presented last month with the downtown parking study my gut tells me yes. Not necessarily in the beginning of the construction but towards the end of the construction after some of the blocks have finished their parking conversion and then the next remaining blocks are being worked on and that parking is removed entirely. So during the later phases of the construction I can see where there'll be less, there'll be more than the 67 spaces unavailable from the final condition. Yeah, real quick. So I've just got maybe three comments. Where the buses might park on Pearl Street I know that there's a lot of obviously St. Paul has GMT bus slips on both sides of the downtown transit center. I see mega bus in front of, is that the, what's the courthouse name? That's not Costello. That one's further down. Zamperi. Okay. Zamperi State Building. Yeah, the state office building. I see them there. That's obviously not parking because the coaches come in. But on the other side on the state, on the post office side I see a lot of kind of waiting areas. Are those open? Is that something that we can convert to a three hour so that it might accommodate? Those are currently encumbered by GMT with an agreement that they hold with the city at large for use of the management of those spaces. I was just curious if they're not, what's the utilization? Could there be some sort of a compromise to maybe remove the one on College Street and be located there? The second one has to do with the addressing of two concerns that I heard from the public comments. One was the changes to the metered parking and it being outside of the, do we call it the downtown improvement district? The core. The core. Yep. You know, it's from South Manuski to Pine and from Maine to Pearl. If the section between South Manuski and Pine on Main Street, those could easily be $1.50 just like everything else. But maybe the ones a little further, if we could just phase those in, that might answer some of those concerns from the people. Because again, the further out, we want people to park a little further out if they're going to the core so that there's more spaces in the core for a higher turnover. So that was just a comment that I wanted to make. And the last one, and it'll probably be answered when you tell me the permanent parking changes for the next one. Many of these temporary spaces that we're putting in, is there any way of keeping those afterwards so that we don't lose 67 whole spaces, maybe we lose 60 space? I don't know. That's a great question. I do know that the Battery Street corridor is going to be the more controlling conversation about the 10 spaces that are currently available on Battery Street. I don't know how that'll land after the corridor study. But we will know that in the middle of Main Street's construction. South Champlain is one of those ones that I can see as we go to remove it after three years, being one that the public and the business community may ask us to reconsider its removal. At which point we would come back and say, instead of, hey, can we rewrite this as a permanent change? And this is what we found to do with the buses. I agree, I don't love the location on College Street for the bus. I also considered it in front of the school, but without the school being able to respond back to me, I wasn't going to propose bus parking on Main Street in front of the school. But I do feel like there are other options for that bus parking spot, especially as that property eventually will redevelop. Likely in the timeframe that we have Main Street under construction that they may start construction, hopefully economically for Burlington. And so we will have to be back for conversations about these. I do feel like that's one that may move around a few times over the next three years. The one thing I note that although Champlain Street is not slated to become a through street again, as hopefully St. Paul and Pine will be again, it'll still stay one way in the right direction, same as the North Champlain. We're being consistent. That's a great observation, Councillor Barr. I don't think I've ever driven on Salchow, I've only ever biked there. The other advantage to having it be one way north here is that people who have essentially ended up at the bottom of Main Street and took this as a turn to find parking, they ultimately end up at the entrance to the downtown garage if they are unsuccessful. And so it gives people a place to stop looping and maybe land in a structured parking location. We'll paint the road. Anyway, thanks. I have two really quick things. I'm glad you pulled this map back up. So those three spaces on Battery Street, yes, I'm just wondering, will there be enough room for a GMT bus to get into that stop that's on the corner? Like I'm just thinking as the Amtrak is sort of getting more popular, I'm definitely envisioning more people using that as a multimodal connection to get to or from that Amtrak station, right? And so yeah, I guess I'm just a little concerned about a bus being able to pull all the way in without its tail sort of sticking out into that travel lane. Yep, so the, oh, my error just decided to disappear. So the stop is the stop here at the corner of Battery and College. There's no stop at Main Street currently? Oh, there's one on Google Maps, but maybe not. Yep, there is also an adjacent study as it relates to movement and parking regarding the Amtrak. That's happening through the RPC and also being sponsored by BBA. That advisory group has another meeting in early May and I will ask them if they're willing to come speak to you guys because I think that their findings would be really helpful for you to hear. But as it relates to current stops, I do feel like the one at college will have enough space to pull in. Okay. There is a bus stop immediately in front of one Main that oddly shows up on Google, but it is not one that GMT uses. But there's not one on the corner of Main and Battery right there. Nope. That's so weird. Okay, well. I would fear for buses stopping there. Yeah. Okay. That stop was removed from GMT just not digitally online. Ah, okay. The one at one Main. And business within our downtown. To talk a little bit about the rate, so the $1.50 an hour rate is what is happening at the Gray Meters. And as we look to the rest of Main Street, the Gray Meters exist already between Pine and Winooski. The next block out from that core goes to a blue-metered rate, which is the dollar an hour rate. And then after that, you cross Union Street, you hit Brown Meters, about halfway. It's the last block of Main Street is interesting. One side is entirely Brown Meters, then about halfway down is Brown Meters. And that's the 40 cents an hour rate. Main Street's character has changed a lot since 2015, since the rate study was done. One of our residents and our PAC members that spoke to it, you know, rates are certainly a way to improve turnover or increase turnover within a block. Time limits are also another. The parking study that you guys received a presentation on, which was also provided to the PAC ahead of the commission meeting, does recommend at minimum the $1.50 an hour. And even recommends that we do a rate study because a $1.50 hour is not that expensive compared to parking in similarly sized cities. Not willing to take that on. This is something for our parking services staff to take a look at, but we are proposing the $1.50 an hour consistently from Battery to Union to match the other activation types that happens inside the downtown core. The western end of Main Street is not a small place anymore. There are a lot of street-facing businesses. There are a lot of other types of service businesses that exist in that corridor that really would benefit from the turnover. The other way that we can look at the turnover, and while I'm proposing both, we could have the conversation about what feels more appropriate is a time-limited space within that corridor as well. We have found either because it's our existing meter type or just because people can afford it, there are a lot of office workers and other business owners that are parking on Main Street as their parking spot. They're happily feeding the meter, but they are parking there all day. Our occupancy counts that we did in June and July or July of 22 showed both days when we counted on Wednesdays, 20 cars, both days parked there for more than six hours. And on one day, 20 cars parked there for more than eight hours. And I've had multiple businesses confess to me that they just park on the street. So it is a challenge as we look to remove 67 of those spaces on Main Street that we should find a different space for at least 20 of them. And then the last thing is just a full bus-sized curb stop at the traveling and permanent parking changes take effect. Essentially, while we're asking for you to start making action on some of these items tonight or in May, they would not become regulatory effective until the block is completed and open from post-construction. Why I need this information in May or June of this year versus in two to three years is because we need to put the plans out to bid. And we need to have a reasonable idea what the regulations are throughout the street so we can appropriately place signage and make sure that it has a spot in the final design. And we'll see if my computer wants to switch screens. So I want to very quickly go through the images. This is exactly what is in the packet. But to highlight, this is the intersection of Main and Battery Street. The parking removal that we're highlighting is on the north side of the corridor. It's not quite striped right by my consultant. There is actually only three regulated spaces here. This area over here is, lines up with the loading dock for April Cornell. I've spoken with the adjacent property owner who is extremely excited about this change and hopes to be able to activate this space south of that property. The other businesses inside of one Main Street are lukewarm to the idea, but don't think that the loss of three parking spaces is that detrimental. Going between Battery and South Champlain, again these are the permanent parking changes. This is not quite drawn right because the image underneath here is from January of this year, but these are two actual parking spaces and not a bump out. Pretty simple proposing an accessible space. This is the first highlight of a vehicle loading space that also after six o'clock at night would turn into a metered parking opportunity. Moving between South Champlain and Pine, similar again one vehicle loading space after talking with the two adjacent businesses. And then this bus stop, which isn't drawn wonderfully in this image, but really has a full concrete curb to be able to serve the transit use in that corner. The computer doesn't like the big images here. So moving between South Champlain or Pine Street and St. Paul Street. This is one of those blocks that we've left alone for a really long time, so it has a lot of changes. So proposing a loading space adjacent to a cluster of businesses that has a pretty good retail and often needs a loading component to be able to serve their business. This is one of those locations where we add an electric vehicle. There's one here currently that's dedicated to public use. There is the car share space, which we are proposing to maintain. It is also their EV space. As we purchase the EV facilities, really they come with the opportunity to charge two cars at a time. And so it seems like a natural transgression, especially given that we have three spaces available there to add an EV space. And then also looking to add an accessible space on the south side of the street. I didn't highlight it in the last image, but there are also notes on here that speak to public art. So one of the reasons why we've been holding fairly large bump outs throughout the project is that we didn't know where the public art was going to be placed. The public art selection goes to the Board of Finance on Monday, and so these are the locations that have been identified. The last component that's still where we're waiting the final design is the stormwater design, which could change how bump outs look. The change, and I actually am realizing that I didn't put this in your packet. It's a separate traffic request that has actually come in, but on St. Paul Street on the west side, this space we would look to change to being a vehicle loading instead of the truck loading, and then also make it a dual use so that it can actually serve the general public in the evening versus a loading use that it doesn't have a spot for. The block between St. Paul Street and Church Street, we would look to retain the car share space. We would look to retain existing 15 minute spaces that are on the north side of the block. We would change that to be a vehicle loading, essentially that's meant to be able to be a quick in and out for city services. In the evening, we would change this to be a taxi space. There is a dedicated 24 hour seven day a week space on this block currently that is underutilized. So recognizing that we still want to provide that opportunity, but we want to provide that opportunity at the times that it's being used. We would still have accessible spaces on the north side of the street, accessible space on the south side of the street, similar vehicle loading, and the police use, which is all inside of ordinance. What this image does start to highlight is that we are proposing some curb line changes on Church Street. We would bump this in to be able to allow for vehicle loading and then taxi use in the evening. This section of the street is going to be curbless. And so if the adjacent property owners ever do decide that they would want to activate this side of the business, they could potentially block it off and put tables and chairs out on an evening type basis and be able to bring them in with proper protections. But the lack of a curb from the face of building all the way across the street to the courthouse would really allow for a lot of flexibility there. At the moment, the current encumbrance for Manhattan Pizza asks for Main Street and not Church Street, but this still allows for that flexibility of the evening use in that space, or they could still do it against the immediate side of their building. So that is one of the larger changes. This is the same block. And so one of the things that we have gotten both from our parking advisory committee, internal staff, businesses, is just asking, these bump-outs are very large. Is there an opportunity to change a bump-out that's not being activated else-wise back into parking? So these are three opportunities on the block between St. Paul Street and Church Street where the bump-outs don't necessarily have any function anymore. And so it would be great to discuss how people feel about that. I will say that the last kitty corner is a space that the adjacent businesses have identified a strong desire to activate, and so I've not proposed this bump-out as an opportunity. Moving further east, we go from Church Street to Manuski. This is also a block that has a lot of proposed changes. With adding the vehicle loading space on lower Church Street, we would propose that the vehicle loading that's existing on the east side of lower Church be changed back into just metered parking. This drawing has a small challenge that I do want to highlight in this location. It's currently drawn to look like the future bump-out for the bus stop. It is one of those locations where I feel as soon as St. Paul Street is constructed next to City Place, that GMT's routing will change in a way that buses will be traveling down this portion of the corridor much more significantly, and that this stop could be something that the City would find great use of inside of three years. But that relies on a lot of assumptions. So one of the things for providing feedback would be getting a good understanding about whether there should be two parking spaces as we look to complete the curve line, or should we construct the bump-out? The numbers that I gave you in the very beginning don't consider the three possible spaces on the other slide. They also assume that these two spaces drawn with red boxes are actual spaces on the street. Moving along the curve line, we have an accessible space. I'm recommending the EV spaces be placed out here in the middle, just thinking about the future bump-out that I feel will come at some point in the near future, that the accessible space can be moved to this space. It's important that we place the EV spaces in about the right location, because we don't want to move the charger that quickly. Vehicle loading, which already exists on the east end of the block, I think there's an opportunity to make it a larger loading space, which I think would serve some of the use that already happens here. Loading space on the north side of the street with a dual use to be metered parking in the evening. Accessible space replaces the accessible space already here. This is one of the locations where two new EV spaces are being proposed. The bus stop, the last one I'll comment on this part of the block, really being formalized, being built out, having a shelter provided here. This is one of those spaces that bus loading and unloading happens currently. It often is also a truck stop. It's one of those spaces that almost currently acts as a dual use. By formalizing it as a bus stop, we found that we needed to find a new location for the vehicle loading, and hence the changes proposed on lower Church Street. Moving east of here, it gets a little simpler. Formalizing and shifting the bus stop that happens on the south side of the street, shifting it a little bit more to the west. We are in conversations with this property owner, whether we close up entirely their western most driveway, which is the image that's shown here, or if we allow a one-way flow in and out, and the bus stop is still centered in the middle. Both of them work geometrically to still provide a pretty significant space for the bus to be able to pull up and have the entire curb. Also formalizing the bus stop on the northeast corner of this block, really being able to bring the curb line out to the travel lane, and providing the buses a better location for their boardings and lightings. Last, and I apologize because I'm not a graphic designer, and some of my colleagues are cringing right now. This is Union Street all the way up to Willard, but it highlights, more importantly, some of our geometric changes. This looks a little nicer than it does currently in that 60% plan. We are proposing to lose four parking spaces here, which includes these two, even though they're currently drawn. It's two inside of this curb, and it's these two that are immediately adjacent to the bike lane. This is to help eliminate the door zone, with bikes that are coming downhill, doing 20 to 25 miles an hour trying to get onto the bike facility. We don't want them doing that speed and being forced to be immediately adjacent to cars. We're asking for four parking spaces to be removed. Two will be by curb, and two will just be by regulation to leave that space clear for the safety of our bicycle community, and then formalizing the bus stop that already exists, and also looking at this southern curb line to be able to add parking nights and weekends only. That was a lot. We'll quickly go through our outreach and our feedback so far. We sent a mailer to all of the addresses in the downtown core that were within two blocks of Main Street. Around the relocated bus parking, as well as some other significant groups within our downtown. We've sent a city-wide front porch forum, and we've been meeting with businesses and property owners throughout the corridor. There's been more than 26 individual one-on-one meetings, and then there was a really well-attended, I'd say there's 40 to 45 businesses at our business meeting at the end of March. Not a lot of comments have come back in writing. I do, and I'm working on summarizing our comments from those property owner meetings. I've only received five emails so far since sending our postcard and our front porch forum out about a week and a half ago. Some of them are concerned about the use of Park Mobile. One of them has asked about the time-limited space, the three-hour, and two are not relevant to Main Street's concept. But we are looking for comments by the end of April on both the temporary changes, the permanent parking changes, as well as the draft study. So all three of those are posted in series on the Main Street's website, asking for comments on all three. So all of it's publicly available. It's what we talked about at our last commission meeting, getting public comment on that, and then bringing that back to you guys in May. So, where we are in the schedule, we're here in April, and we're gonna come back again in May. So, we're gonna start with round three. In June, the project goes out to bid to contractors. The very end of June, looking to award through the City Council in August. We'll have another round of business owner outreach meetings in September. And so a lot of the questions were around, when do you start construction, and how do I know when my block's gonna be under construction. So we're gonna go back to our community again in September, and then looking for a start of construction in November, lasting approximately three years over that whole eight blocks. It doesn't mean that every block's gonna be under construction for three years. But three years probably start to finish. So, November of 26. And that is the end of that. Great, thank you. So welcome, Commissioner, discussion on the permanent changes we just previewed here. Start to my left, Commissioner Damiani. The first that I had was around just accessible parking along the corridor. Is there the same number of accessible spaces currently and then proposed in the new plan? I think there is one more than there is currently. Okay, great. I just wanted to make sure that there was at least either the same or additional accessible spaces, especially with the removal of the spaces. The other question or comment I guess that I had is sort of in the lower main street portion by April Cornell. Is the loading zone sort of in front of one main? Is that proposed to stay there with the bike lane there? Yes. Going up the hill? Yes. The only change on that block is to remove the three parking spaces. Everything on the south side and everything on the west side as you go down towards college remains unchanged. And once those spaces are removed, is that what is sort of going in that space? Is it just concrete sidewalk? That is a tricky question. At the moment it will be a quick build. Okay. Because the TIF funding doesn't allow us to substantially construct west of Battery Street unless it directly benefits the businesses east of Battery Street. I can justify the bike lane and we can justify the sidewalk. We can't justify the blocking off of that space which we know the business west of Battery Street will directly activate which is in a different TIF district. We are looking for funding to make that more permanent as we construct it but that is what it is currently proposed as. Thank you. The only reason to ask is sort of when trucks are parking that loading zone. I bike in this particular part of the city a lot. And I love the bike lane. I'm just thinking somebody is coming down there and if there is a truck parked there. A lot of cars coming from Lake Street onto Main Street going up the hill. Sort of cut the corner. You can't see anybody with the April Cornell building. I appreciate that the sidewalk is being or the crosswalk is being reactivated but there is still a lot of safety concerns that I have around that particular portion of the corridor. That is just why I am focusing on that. That is actually one of the reasons we have debated internally whether or not we could add two parallel parking spaces. It is long enough to add two parallel parking spaces but we think for the visibility and the safety concern that it should be as transparent as possible. That is all I had for now. Thank you. Commissioner Mutano. That is a lot of exciting stuff. In general is construction going to proceed up the street, up the grade starting from battery, up to Union or will there be like multiple blocks being worked on simultaneously? What is that going to look like over the three-ish years? So my gut tells me that a contractor will probably start on the blocks actually on the east end of the corridor which is where we are relocating the ravine sewer. It is the deepest, largest utility. It will be pretty significant work. That said, they can have a very different take on the order of operations. When we do get our bids in, one of the things that we are asking for is a schedule and so we're not selecting just on cost but also on schedule, means and methods and the traffic control that they propose. So I don't know for sure but I can certainly give you guys an update in September. Alrighty. And at that business outreach meeting in September might there be additional changes proposed that might come to this mission that we'd act on or is the idea that changes from the king in May, the ones that are going to be enforced? I do feel that there could be changes to any of this in a localized fashion at any point before it actually is 100% complete. What we're really looking for is like an 80% understanding of the regulations on the street and I'm saying 80% because I'm hoping we can get 80% of it correct by May and that there's 20% like everything in construction is going to change. Three years is a long period of time. Businesses could turn over, they could have different uses. We've talked to a lot that want to change their business type instead of being just a bar. They want to be a restaurant. It's going to look different. They're going to have different opportunities. So we want to be able to be flexible but we also want to make sure that our bid that we're financially very reasonable and that we're looking for alcohol to start, a start to the permanent regulations. Alright, thank you very much. I often take Paul from Street to Church Street. I really like this sort of different variety of things there. I think having the taxi stand is an amazing idea that I don't know is just there. You know, just thinking about the Flynn and what I'm being right there is just there. And as far as your question about should the curb bump out at the corner of Church Street because I think you said something about, you know, GMT may want to use that. I don't know. I'm kind of in favor of it being those parking spaces and being there to be a bus stop because that's what you were thinking, right? Like that it would be parking spaces that would end the use of the bus stop in the future. Correct. And that's the reason why it's actually drawn that way is because our consultant is drawing the opposite corner of every intersection on the south side, which is something that GMT asked of us and said, hey, in the future we could potentially want the opposite adjacent, you know, as a bus stop. So what's being shown is actually what our consultant showed us as here's it, how it would be feasible. This is what it would look like. This is us making sure that the lighting is placed in the right location so that in the future all you have to do is construct a curb and a concrete pad. GMT would add a shelter and you have a bus stop fairly easily. There are often things that you could get by grant. So I'm somewhat indifferent and looking for feedback. Similarly, the intersection, the southeast corner of Pine and Main, so in front of like the comedy club, is being designed the same way. That one it's drawing though has the curb line showing parking spaces and not a bus stop. I think we should build for the future we want to see, right, and we want transit to be super viable, then let's build for the potential of having a bus stop there. And then the last, adding the parking spaces, I know that they would be restricted but in front of the admin school, so between... So by designating them, essentially in those off times they fall under the no parking category. So as Jeff talked to you guys last month about how they're working on that whole no parking, is it immediate ticket in tow? Is it a whoops scenario? This is one of those ones that falls under that. You're using it for the wrong purpose, as no parking and you would be ticketed in tow, so that they would be available for the school pick up and drop off. We have talked to parking services about that. They thought that it was a reasonable to have some solicit signs so that their enforcement staff could understand it, but they were supportive of adding that there and enforcing it. Especially in the morning, that's probably where it's going to be most misused, which is also why I was proposing to have the time of the new time of the night, which might give a different connotation of being out of there after, you know, being in the downtown versus the movie car there until 6 a.m. and see if I can remember to leave that. So the permanent parking changes, is there any way or do we continue to study before there's an ordinance that shows the dollar fifty between the Safinowski and the mine? Yup, that is done on our existing blue top meter, so the dollar an hour, and that happens throughout the entire parking system that's in place inside of Park Mobile, which also basically is the amount of time you can feed that meter type. The physical meter doesn't necessarily stop, it's super easy, like I come back out and I keep feeding it. That does require parking service staff to... You are correct on that. And that's probably one of the next pieces of outreach, because we've not, with this effort, yet identified what the zones are. I can see presidents have spoken to about the accessible need of some of these businesses needing to break Main Street up into being different zones. So someone can park adjacent to Church Street, take care of services or businesses that they might have in that area, and then also go down to Lower Main Street and get their hair cut or whatnot. And so that's where, you know, that series of events can take more than three hours, possibly, and so we do need to think about breaking that whole area up into different zones so that certain types of our residents and guests along the corridor have the opportunity to move and take advantage of other adjacent businesses. It is very complex. To speak to your first question, my understanding the downtown core is not written in our ordinances. That is from the 2015 study as it related to trying to figure out how to disseminate the pretty radical and significant changes that happened to Burlington's parking in that time frame. Inside of our ordinances right now, those different eater types are written in. The ability to change that in ordinance falls at your approval level, but I do still want to go back and review the study. And we likely need to come to some sort of understanding about the study that was done in 2015 and the work that was done most recently presented by BHB last month and how that is an update of specific parts of that study. It didn't cover its entire area, but it definitely is a pretty significant refresh of a lot of its information. Just as we talked about the $1.50 being something that encourages turnover, the downtown study I know was designed so that people would try it. If you're going to be there for longer, park further out, and then either commute in or take the bus or agree to walk, it's wonderful to walk. So three is actually a little longer than an industry standard. A lot of other communities, municipalities, even the ARDs, because that is actually what's usually recommended. If you get an opportunity to assist the staff, pass this by you, check your clients, and so once you're back, you're probably parked there a little longer. We're recommending three, because that is what our parking services staff is currently ready and able to do based on the fact that we will compromise between industry standard and maybe being a little bit more aggressive than how we actually relate it to them. Because I think it's a really... Thank you, fellow folks. You knew my question was coming. And I guess, you know, the bigger question about parking is, you know, when we talk about that, reallocating those 67 loading zones through loading zones, and also perhaps the... Are you factoring those spots in as parking spots? Yes. They're inside of the existing count, and they're also inside of the finalized count. So as we counted the existing 201 spaces on Main Street, that counts accessible spaces, it counts the taxi spaces, it counts the loading spaces. What our final condition does do or take advantage of is count the number of metered spaces that that loading space turns into if it's a really large space. So if it's a 60-foot loading space, there's not a lot of those currently on Main Street because of the diagonal parking, we do count that as, say, three metered spots in the final count. Okay. Because that's dynamic, I think this is where thankfully is going, and that you don't necessarily need to warehouse a vehicle for X period of time, but you need that customer to access the business in a shorter period of time. So I think that's great, and I'm glad that that is being included in that definition. Okay. On the lower church street, the Kerblis area between Main and King, right? Mm-hmm. So a couple of those restaurants, like I'm thinking of the Istanbul House, they have outdoor seating, and so this is going to be Kerblis. What's that? Where's the line, like the encroachment line? Where's, you know, I know that the street will be marked as well, but just thinking about, you know, really the safety of being seated out on a street like that, that's generally pretty low speed. But how are we kind of working in mitigating those conflicts? So we have, under the street seats program, we have, you know, spaces that people are taking on the kerb side, ways that people take spaces inside of the street, and that comes with making sure that the visual reflectiveness of the corners of their boundary are highlighted. Okay. The businesses that are already on that corner do a pretty significant effort in designating their boundary area already, and so what they'll have to, what they'll be asked to do is just add the proper cones. So like you said, the speeds on that street are very low already, and the volume of vehicles on the street is also very low. And the Kerblis section would be the intersection of the street through the driveway of the Flynn, so it does cross in front of all of those businesses that activate. Okay. Okay. Now moving, moving up to Edmonds, as I have had a child in that school complex, 16 years, not the same child. Several. Not worth. I know. So, that parking moving to nights and weekends, I think just, you know, as Commissioner Fox mentioned, just, you know, clarifying that in fact, like, there needs to be, like, great communication with the school, and for people who park there, you know, is that kind of cultural change? Is used as sort of de facto, you know, evening parking overflow from the Flynn? Does that mean that there will be kiosks or park mobile there for those after hours? Yeah. So I was proposing that they be unmetered. The adjacent spaces on the north side of the road are brown meters, and their time limit for their enforcement only goes till 6 p.m. normally. These spaces would become available starting at 5 p.m. We could talk about what that time is, if 6 feels more comfortable, but really to match what the regulation is on the north side of the street, proposing unmetered spaces on the south side. The one little caveat is the weekend on a Saturday, where the metered on the north side would actually be effective. The south side would be unmetered and free. Our parking services director really liked the idea of being able to highlight free parking near the downtown as a post-construction recovery type item. Okay. Yeah, I think communication with a school on you know, like music concert night and the play, and there's not a lot of extra parking on there, so that frustration might be good to kind of hopefully get someone to answer that. See what's going on. So yeah, that would be great. And then, you know, while we're painting stuff on the road there, kind of admins as my kids about to graduate, you know, we have South Union and now we have this beautiful bike lane and the bus that's going to be going up there. There is still the ability to turn right on red. There's an ability to turn right from south on to while the crosswalk sign is lit. I would love one of those little lights up no right turn when the crosswalk is illuminated. That would be Union Street turning on to what do you mean in the school zone? There's a crossing guard there, there are gazillion kids whose frontal lobes are still nascent developing and then cars who are trying to turn right as they're looking down for the traffic I think I've even sent I'm sure I've said videos to public works. I'm going to stop complaining about admins in two months. Those types of experiences are really important because I don't have kids that go to admins and while I can make good observations I'm not there nearly as much as parents are so that's really helpful. I think that's my random list of questions but this was great. This is a lot. I think the communication piece would be key as we heard from the business owners as well. Getting out in front of all this changes coming, changes coming, here you go here you park will mitigate some of the anxiety and complaints. Thank you. All right, thank you. I have a few years left in my admins parenting career so I guess I'll pick up the slide. It's tough to look it's not great visibility downhill from that intersection anyways. I endorse it. The whole downtown area maybe the whole city for that matter but that's another topic for another night. Can you tell me more about what looks like a mid block crossing in the middle of towards city hall park? Yes, so we are proposing a mid block crossing we call it the Flynn crossing generally lines up with their marquee but not exactly it does line up more specifically with the large promenade that we created in city hall park. It's probably one of the blocks where I've observed the most jaywalking in the downtown crossing between that south side and north side in between St. Paul and church. It's also to better activate the park and or let the users of the park have an opportunity to permeate the block to the south side where there's many services. It is also the start of the curbless section on main street so it is part of that plaza area to highlight its importance. Comment on like bus loading speeds. Is there a curb height that like saves time there for like having to kneel down and then ride back up? Is that a thing that we're having? Having a curb does help. We've had that question specifically to the GMT staff and operations. The curbless section east of the church street intersection transitions down to being full height curb within the section where the bus stop is. I can work on bringing that up again if that's helpful. It's okay. Yes, so we are aiming to have bus stops be full height curb to facilitate kneeling as quick as possible and or accessible loading. Thank you. Quick comment on the electric vehicle charging spaces. I think to my knowledge there's no fast charging opportunities downtown. Wanted to toss out there that could be an attractive space and people that are range limited and looking for a place to come and hang out and dwell. I've done that in other cities and picked those cities purely for logistical reasons and found myself enjoying them and spending money in there while hanging out on a road trip. Planning for one of marketplace. So I learned a little bit about EV charging. The fast chargers the level chargers come with a base that is four foot by four foot. That's not quite appropriate for on street and main street and so the EV chargers that we are proposing are actually level two. So kind of a faster than what's out there currently. Level two chargers can come in a really very compact even up to a small as an 18 inch diameter base and even smaller for the actual charger piece. But the fast super fast level three chargers are going to be challenging to put on street. So that's on the guard. Inside of parking lots a little bit more opportunity. Additionally, BED would need to put new infrastructure underneath the main street to support that. They can easily they have the right phase of power going down main street to add a level two charger. Level three would require something much more significant for that. Very good. Further on my end we open up a public comment. The room, yes. There's so much going on. I'm hoping that projects like this will kind of help people realize how leisurely it can be. So I just wanted to say thanks for this project design. And then I have two little pieces that I'd like to like show. The first one would be parking spots taken away. What is the we took away 67 and the ones that we're putting in or like reconfiguring are they the same size? Yes. Yeah, there'll be 8 foot by 20 foot which is our standard space size in our downtown. We could fit in more cars with smaller parking spots which would encourage lighter vehicles less stress on the roads less noise more parking spots. Though I understand people can drive what they want here but the loud rumbling engines of motorcycles and gigantic trucks really breaks the immersion that we're in a nice downtown core when you have to, everyone on the street has to pause the conversation as someone tries to park or something and so maybe some smaller parking spots could actually alleviate multiple concerns at once. That's it. Thanks again for this presentation. Thank you. Any other comments in the room? Sure. Sandy Wheeler, I hear I hear a lot about transit buses and I'm wondering what the utilization and occupancy level is on our buses. Here's one. Two, there's been we've experimented with transit public transit that supports things like we're going to the airport, we're going to we're having the college street shuttle or we're doing things like this and it seems to me with all this provision for buses we could consider a loop, a square, a rectangle that would promote people to use public transit and not bring in cars and that would be a way to a way to adapt to the loss of 67. So I know it's a different department and they have different rules and they have their buses and everything like this, but we're one community, why make all this accommodation and we feel like we're really doing something good? Why don't we really do something good? So we are in, I say we DPW as a whole has been meeting pretty regularly with GMT to talk through those exact items relative to both Main Street as well as some of our other city projects. There is what is bus 8 called? What is route 8 called? City loop. There is a loop that does what you describe that kind of does a square ish of the downtown and then there are a lot of buses that do come in and out from other communities. So we are working and I know GMT is working on rechecking their occupancy that effort is happening this spring so we can certainly give you an update and give you kind of the right points of contact if you want to talk directly with them. I don't use the bus but I don't see and I love the idea of instead of focusing on what we are losing what if we focused on what we gained what if we actually made some improvements in accessibility and transportation downtown and took the focus away from we are losing this and we are doing this because while the benefit may be very apparent in three years the story for three years is not going to help especially because it is coinciding with some other things that we didn't anticipate or know would be some issues as we are dealing with public safety there is one. Two art. The art contributions and the budget for art is those in places that are naturally using the space we have created on the curbs or are we actually taking parking for them? I just don't know. That information goes to the Board of Finance and then the City Council as early as next week Monday the locations that the art has been cited does not need any of the bump outs and so it is occurring either within the sidewalk or within the amenity bell which is where the trees go so there is now I can now answer that question. Great. Last thing and I know we discussed this earlier on the phone. Let's call in the room I'll close public comments we are not seeking action on this item thank you very much for the detailed presentation. I might ask if there is a more preference of the commission as we do get feedback back from folks I know similar a very recent similar project did end up with a lot of public comments did have a lot of traffic regulation changes our standard is to get you the packet the Thursday before the meeting but with the substantial ask that doesn't feel like that might be enough time is there an alternative where you might want to see a draft before the final packet ahead of time to get an understanding of what is coming forward how far in advance could you get us a draft two weeks two weeks before the meeting or ten days somewhere in there certainly probably like the Friday before we normally get the packet but even if it was just broken up into chunks where we got the temporary changes first and we could look at the even if it's broken up that way to be sort of digestible I think that would be helpful for me so we can certainly push out draft of the information kind of as a one way street and then just remembering the open meeting if you find comments or questions it will be a lot of information so I want to make sure you guys have enough time yeah we're working with director Spencer welcome updates as you got them certainly like your main street great streets website is there available thank you to the main street great streets team and staff for putting together today's very chunky presentation and thank the commissions time on this to is that we have unfortunately lost a former dpw commission member jared wood former commissioner for many years in a sidewalk advocate extraordinaire has passed and I just want to acknowledge that his contributions have been helpful in guiding our pedestrian focus for this department and will continue to do so the city council on Monday reviewed an update on north wienewski avenue and we have a schedule for the paving project and the lane realignments that you all reviewed and approved at a past meeting and we are going to start milling of the street which is removing the top layer as early as this week and structure the main so thanks for your support on that one there's a fair bit of information in my direction for including a chunky memo on the effort to get the fidget solid waste district drop off center expanded back beyond things other than just compost which is a very limited range of services for our burlington residents as with most things in burlington it's complicated so we will be going to the ward 5 npa in this very room tomorrow night to give a presentation on an effort to acquire the flin avenue parcel behind metalworks that we can move the city's municipal soil management piles to that location to free up more space at 339 pine street at least for an interim full service drop off center while we work through the parkway construction the rail yard enterprise project planning etc happy to answer any questions I don't think any decisions will be coming to the commission like traffic regulations are things that require your decision but I want to make sure you're engaged and can provide feedback as needed thanks to rob and other members of the team we're making good progress on the communications around our community so I think we are discussing the possibility of a kind of a warning period after May first given that there is a size of toter that we're out of it's the small toter the 35 gallon toter so while we've reordered both of those and there are people who have requested toters we're not unable to get them we are going to need a warning period so that we're not punishing people for something they've tried to get but haven't been able to get we'll give you more on that following up from Vice Chair O'Neill Vivoncos towing kind of questions we had a presentation last month there has been some additional feedback specifically on Norfolk City Avenue and how we manage time-limited spaces that have us fast-tracking a concept to do an intro of time-limited spaces so that we can have it in advance of the paving for Northwood City a lot of other pieces in here I guess I would just highlight our excitement about having successful hires across our organization the pandemic has suffered with many open positions including ones that I know concern us all are the crossing guards but we're up as high as we've been with the crossing guards in a long time and I want to thank staff for that we have a new leadership in the traffic division I think that's in large part our recent success and oh construction portal yeah we're happy to let you know it has started next week it's going to be a pretty robust week with paving and traffic calming projects starting on birch cliff parkway and sidewalk reconstruction on lejmir and margaret streets these will be out in front porch for them letting you folks know about that but to the point Jaypen made the construction portal is up it's active I think it's in the healthiest shape it's been in a while we've had a lot of technical turnover both within the technical services team which manages a lot of the projects but also our GIS kind of coordinators across the city we now have a lot of stability and of course a lot of loads quickly information is accurate more to make sure the projects are up to date so this week few days I appreciate that observed was that there's a sign basically right at the intersection that says right further south similar to the sign I do know we did install a myovision camera which is the new modern not only vehicles but also pedestrians and cyclists so that is in operation up there which is an advancement that is more dynamic than past systems but I can get you a more full update yes it does counts as well I'm really pleased by it and it is getting us a lot more data then in part of what I know we installed it at that location was precisely because we are doing additional counts and trying to understand loads and whether any further signal changes are warranted so I don't know anything more than that so I should check in with staff Vice-Chair on the other hand okay I love Mr. Golding that we are continuing to work on communication and I appreciated the our back and forth on the communication on the water relining on Overlake Park but what we did discover is that some information and I think Mr. McKegney who was here earlier from East Avenue probably had this as well is that some information comes to landlords via email if we have an email the city has an email on record and so the notice about the I want to tell him like check your spam folder because that notice did come into my spam folder so I think just figuring out when we have these big construction projects that are kind of impacting you know streets and neighborhoods as much of a multi-pronged approach possible with finding that sweet spot of enough anticipation before the event that it's still in the forefront of your mind but not two days before and then you're like oh my goodness and you know we would definitely be open to feedback from you folks as residents and as homeowners if you have noticed takeups and or things that have worked so that was a really productive back and forth because we did discover we had been noticing a couple homeowners on our water resources projects going via email and they were landing in quite a few spam boxes so we have had a work with our IT department to figure out if there's anything we can do on our end to prevent that you know we have developed protocols whereby we look at the type of project the level of impact and whether we need to go to advise the property owner how to do that is it the resident and how to do that is it both for certain circumstances for instance like a sidewalk reconstruction project we're really trying to get to the residents who live on that street may or may not be the property owner and that's a little less important given that we really want people to know their driveway may be impacted they need to get flower pots off the sidewalk but certainly for something like great streets or a water rehabilitation project we're reaching out to property owners we look at a couple different ways to do that but we're also as you folks have noticed there's an in-built signage from porch forum VT alert to try to have these overlapping kind of modes of reaching people just in case things go to a spam box you know recycling is a great example we have many different ways we're trying to reach property owners residents folks who may be renters but again I think we're kind of in learning mode still so if things aren't working we're are working that's really good feedback to give a re-briefing since the last time we gave that possibly only Commissioner Barr was here in terms of what our protocols are for who we reach out to and when we reach out to them in terms of timing so we think about that but certainly things are never perfect and we can improve I think the yard signs the green belt signs whatever those those were fantastic and those are the biggest hit sorry sorry to the conversation kind of related to that on a street like ours on Overlake where there's timed parking and now half the street has no parking until June and they've already started to do this amazing web of hoses and pipes like it's brilliant in anticipation of digging up the road so there's no parking on half of the street contractors take up a third of the street there's very limited space for visitors contractors or just like we had to we had to pull for example we had to pull our car out of our driveway because they were going to be digging it up and we have a teenage driver who's already blown a tire on south avenue so we thought let's not have him in a construction vehicle back and out of the driveway so we had to park it on the street there's limited parking and it wasn't there for four hours or anything like that but what's the communication that residents can have with parking services does it go to Jeff does it go to you on like we have a contractor or we need to pull our car out now because the pipes are coming and we still get a lot of UVM and Champlain students parking on our street so the only other place that anyone on our street can park all around is resident only that is a good one that is a good one we could take this offline I don't want to use anybody else's time but we're going to we deal with construction and parking and kind of thinking of like the what we have done in the past when practicable is try to figure out if there are any temporary regulation changes that are possible on construction projects especially really long ones to kind of free up some on street parking we do have regular communications to try to stage their own parking usage in a more beneficial way for residents if that's something that maybe isn't happening or could be tightened up I meet with our team on Fridays and obviously could even let them know tomorrow if that's something that could be implemented on this particular project if there's any possibility if they've splayed out and they're taking up too much parking and there's a way to be more mindful certainly that's a context we can pass on I mean they've been great so far it's just as soon as I see the out of state plates on the street I think like oh we're just crunched so that's all okay enough about parking what is the process for naming the roundabout this question came to some folks on the commission in particular about the Shelburne Street roundabout and there are some folks who are advocating for naming after Tony Reddington and I just want to know how do we communicate what those processes are and how to direct them to to that yes, thanks Vice-Chair Neil Vivonco I think the right format is to have folks participate or contact the city counselors who are on the Transportation Energy and Utilities Committee and the City Council has delegated this topic to the TUC and the TUC committee will likely be taking this up at their next meeting which is May 3rd 5 p.m. here at 645 Pine Street so that would be folks to refer to we are trying to work with the city attorney to best understand given it's US Route 7 what we're finding out is that the corridor or a part of the corridor is very challenging given that it is a federal aid highway and that if there is interest a more practical route might be some sort of recognition plaque or something adjacent to the roundabout that may call out someone's legacy or activity and I know the TUC will be taking that up okay, that's all, thanks alright any more hard questions? no thanks for plugging the Battery Street scoping study got it in recent front porch forums as well that is pulled up the details here Tuesday May 2nd there's a con toys auditorium in City Hall an open house from 4 to 6 p.m. stop by whenever and then a more formal presentation at 6 p.m. and I forget the exact schedule months out after that but this is like the first big sort of public facing event for it sure there will be other public facing events later in the process good early one to contribute to and I'll note that the as you mentioned in the front porch forum announcement to that effect there's also a link available for that project and opportunities to contribute even if you're unable to make make it on May 2nd there but note on there's a couple places in the pack tonight and this comes up in the past where like the memo doesn't quite match exactly what the map is there's an east versus west, there's a north versus south mixed up today there have been other times I don't know what the process is from like draft memo to pack it in hands or if there's like a review part of that but it would emphasize it's a little diligence in making sure things check up I want to be in the like deciding if this meets city plans and city need role more so than the editing role fair statement the I appreciate that some of the items on the consent agenda this evening were had the spirit of daylighting intersections providing improved sight lines and so forth I think that's great to be doing that where we can and hopefully we've got the more resources as we've been staffing up our teams to be looking around opportunities there they reminded me of that I don't know the details but there was a pedestrian injured in a crash on Colchester Ave relatively recently it just made me think to sort of be catching those you know known trouble spots as much as we can before catching things reactively right based on the crash reports along those lines if anybody's in conversation with the fire department about their messaging that their social media feed reads like there's autonomous vehicles rolling arounds crashing into things poles gutters people etc and I think the messaging that there's there's drivers and there's a there's a role in a potentially a some accountability for driving behaviors as part of sort of the spirit of messaging there would be worthwhile now I'll say the same to to them at a future meeting of theirs but wanted to toss that out there and I think certainly us in public work's been doing a good job and I sort of like that messaging around crashes and things but there are partners around the city could be encouraged to do the same last point there was a parking garage collapse in New York City yesterday and again it's probably too early to understand what happened or why but I'm curious to just want to toss out a question of whether there's a design vehicle wait that our garages are planned around and we have sort of aging infrastructure we've been undergoing some improvements lately at the same time over the past decade or so the vehicle sizes have increased unhelpful and unsafe directions and could have implications for our infrastructure as well and we throw a battery in them they're both huge ants okay great thanks for the updates on the staffing when I saw an announcement recently on the open positions it struck me that there was a lot in the water department got concerned for a moment there a lot of those are new positions or reclassified in new positions based on reorg that we have successfully gotten through the board of finance and city council thanks to the good leadership of division director megan moyer that's probably why you're seeing a lot of those announcements I think a positive announcement very good alright nothing further on my end thank you all for your good work with that I will close commissioner communications and move to the next item on our agenda adjournments in the next meeting date of May 17th so I should do it one at a time here sorry I saw you there who's the chair going to give it to I'll give the vice chair on the up above did you even say that we got it I second it we got a second from commissioner bar is there any discussion around that motion all in favor if you say aye aye for itself any opposed alright we're adjourned