 The meeting of the Arlington Redevelopment Board on Monday, December 2nd, 2013. We've got a medium-sized agenda, I guess. The first item of which is the hearing to reopen the EDR special permit for 936 Massachusetts Avenue for signs. If the applicant wants to approach, that would be great. Oh, okay. Okay. I'm not sure exactly how you guys do it. That appears great. Oh, okay. Okay. And I know if you do have some extra plans, I'll take one, because I did not, you know, because of the size. I'm going to give everybody one of these. It's just, it's creeped a little bit from the one that was on the stand out. It's not a carol value. If you could, if you could just say your name. Sure. Absolutely. My name is Tony Frockel. I'm with A.U. Engineering at the top of Rhode Island. His name's Bob Richard. He's with the Marine Energy. They own the site. It's 934 Mass Avenue. It's the shell station right down the street here. Just part of a rebranding program. They want to just make some revisions to the signage on the site that's out there right now. I'm doing some, doing some research on the site. The history of the project. There was four special permits under the variances that were granted for the site. First one was a special permit. Just the gas station could go in at this site. And that was, I think late 60s, somewhere along those lines that was built. February of 93, there was a special permit applied for to revise the signage. It essentially allowed for the existing sign. It's in there right now. Something very similar to this. Size wise, allowed for the, the markings on the building. Allowing for this to be a service center. Then in September of that year, there was a special permit requested for a canopy. Because the canopy wasn't out there at that time. So then that was added. Part of that, part of that permit also included signage on the canopy. The ID sign, the price sign, if you will, was essentially the same. And what it also requested was for two logos similar to the ones that were requesting on the canopy at that time. And then in 2001, there was a similar to what we're asking here, rebranding for some signage. And that requested what you see at the site now. The one thing that's a little bit, I think, in Lingo was between September of 1993 and 2001, what exactly was allowed for on that canopy. And I think Karen and I had talked about this, just that it seemed a little bit, we couldn't seem to figure out exactly what was allowed. It's not specified in a decision. The decision says that the board wants to review the final plan for the sign. And at the time, three proposals were presented. But the decision doesn't describe which one was settled upon. It left a lot of impugnity. Yeah, yes. And when we did the research for the signage that was revised in 2001, it seemed to indicate that there were two, if you will, signs, logos on the canopy that were removed and replaced with the one word shell, which you see in the upper left-hand corner there. Yes, right there. So basically what we're proposing here is a revision to the ID sign. And basically that's just a revision to the look. You can see that on the plan that I just handed you. It actually reduces the amount of signage on the ID sign. And then requesting to add two pectin logos back onto the canopy, which we believe were approved at one time. I'm not sure that I have anything that I can put in their hands that shows that. And that's about it. What you see on those two plans is what they're looking to do out there. We respect the fact that no LED signs on the pricing. The ID price sign also, the only thing that would be lighted would be the shell itself and the actual prices from within, not LEDs. Very similar to what's out there right now. And on the canopy, same thing, the shell would be lighted. None of the canopy, none of the yellow, none of the red, anything like that. Building won't change at all. And, you know, requesting consideration for that proposal. Thank you. Tony, I think you just answered my question for me, but I just wanted to make sure I'm hearing it correctly. So, on the price panel, those are not lights going out. It's not an LED light that's emitting from the sign going out towards the motor. Is that somehow an internal light? It will be back lit. That's correct. And the red and the green on there are merely distinct to show what color the letters will be, but those will not be lit up. They are not LEDs, they will not be the same. What's out there right now, essentially, it's clear, you put a plastic letter on it and the light shines through it and this will be essentially the same thing. The picture of that sign. It won't have the food mark, but this is a sign that we did Melrose, Matt, so it will be that exact sign. Okay. Do you have the pictures of the existing? And then on the pectin, that is, again, it's just, do you see the back lit or it's an internally lit sign? Yeah, it's internally lit and the only thing that is translucent is the shell itself. Okay. What looks is on the sign and on the canopy is white there, that's opaque, you can't see, the light will not come through that. Okay. And then the other major change, obviously, is the repainting of the face of panel, so you have yellow. Yes, it would just be the yellow band. There's currently a red bar that goes around, so that would be very similar to what's out there now. Okay. Thank you. So the white, right now it's currently a white band around the canopy, with the red, right? Yes. I saw that picture. Yes. So you're proposing to paint yellow now, correct? Yes. To replace the white all the way around? Yes. Which will make it quite a bit brighter. It'll look like you're building right now, correct? Yes. Somewhere I saw that picture. It'll be that yellow all the way around? Yes, it will. All four sides? Yes. Okay. So that's a fair, that's probably the largest change. So, as far as visibility? If you're asking me to do it, you're absolutely, yeah, yeah, sure. Yeah. No. You agree with me, sure. No, when I'm saying, you know, the ID sign is going to be the same size. So yes. Right. That is correct. You're not going to have any words on the canopy now. No. You're just going to have the logo. Correct. What you see right there is what? And before you had shell in two places, right? On the canopy? No, the shell was just in one place. Just in one place? Yeah. Okay. So in looking at the decision, Carol, that you sent us, that isn't the final decision. The 92? Yeah. Or the ARB 93 decision? The ARB September 93. Okay. So in looking at that, they were saying that the freestanding shell sign with letters for pricing, the sign should not be larger than 15 square feet. And the existing sign out there is larger than 15 square feet, it looks like. The shell itself. Well, I think if you- You're downsizing it. If you look at the two parts to that where it includes the area for the logo and or the company name and the pricing sign, the pricing is 15 square feet and the logo is I think 29, which gets you to 44 for the whole thing. Not 39, existing ID sign, 39? Well, if you read what's in here- What's in there? Is 44, what ended up being built was 39. So it's actually smaller than what- Okay. So then the only difference would be the size of the letters, the height of the letters. This decision, whether it was the final decision or not, said 12 inches. And now you're going to have some letters that are quite a bit larger than 16 inches. We are proposing 16 inches. And then the other ones are smaller. That is correct. Okay. Yes. I think that's all the questions I had. The building is staying exactly the way it is. Correct? Correct. Thank you. Andrew? Christine asked the question I was very concerned about. So I think I have any questions. I'm okay. Annie? Yep. Actually, I think all my questions have been answered as well. You can see any other comments or anything else for the applicants? Bruce? Well, this is really more discussion about the board. Exactly. Has the players to have a question about the applicant? Yeah, please. You know, it's a little vexing when you look at the old decision to try to figure out what our predecessor board actually did with respect to the final plan. But I think that the fact that the existing scheme has been there for this period of time without, you know, a rumblings from the board that we were displeased with it would indicate that what is there must have complied with whatever the final plans were. So, you know, I'm comfortable, you know, not going back and looking at the 1993 decision to see whether or not you're in compliance, but just accepting that you are in compliance with what you have now. And I'd go on to say that, you know, it looks like in some ways the total square footage of the sign is being slightly reduced. And I was pleased to hear that these are not going to be glaring LED lights because that was a recent town meeting amendment to the zoning bylaw to prohibit that type of sign. So, with saying that, I would support granting a relief of sign. I would agree just from the perspective of, you know, I think I agree the biggest change is the yellow all the way around the canopy. And I think that's fairly typical. I like it better. Yeah, I think it's fairly typical of shell brand. Exactly, shell brand. And the larger letters, can I see that proposal again? The letters aren't quite a bit larger, but these were actually kind of small. Yeah, they were. I was actually surprised by that. That doesn't really bother me either. Okay. And can I make the case that the bigger letters are actually more of a, they're safer for drivers than the small letters? Instead of having to kind of turn your head or squint or try and figure out what it says, where you, you know, obviously I know, you know. Yeah, they're not that much bigger, so. But, you know, a little bit bigger. I'm just going to throw that out there, you know. It's a good point, I think. And, you know, a little less time that the drivers' eyes are off the road to check the prices. What is going on? So, Carol, what kind of motion should we do here? Are we looking to amend, we're looking to amend the special permit. Just in respect of the sign. If we make a motion to that effect. Yeah, to modify the environmental design review special permit. But I think you'd be wise to specify either, to specify the number of signs you're approving. You could cite the, the. The drawings? Yeah, if you're specific about, we've got three versions of the plan. Right. So, we want to be specific about what you're approving. Okay. Bruce, do you want to take a crap? I think all we're talking about is approving the signage as presented in the engineering. Engineering plans. I was just looking for the date. Yeah, I mean to SG-1. Or, no, it's SG-1. 11-15, I think, if you look at the revision block. Okay. Yeah, for clients requests, yeah. I think we should use that because that's the closest. Yeah, because they were originally dated October 1. Although, this last revision had the same date as the one before. Yeah, that's all it is. So, we want to just make sure we get the right plan. Do you know what the right revision is? Yeah, it's presented to the board. Okay. That's fair. Yeah. With that, I'll move that the special permit in docket number 2892, with respect to the signage at the Shell service station, be amended as shown by the plans prepared by AU Engineering dated October 1, 2013, as revised on November 15, 2013, and as presented to the board this evening, December 2, 2013. Okay. All in favor? All right. Great. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You're going to work on that pretty quickly, or? Yeah, we will. It'll probably be done in January. We want to get the painting done. You need to be able to get the painting done. You can use it. You can use it. You can work it on and just shrink it back to where it should be. Good. Yeah. Good. That sounds good. It's poetry recorded. Good luck. Thank you. Thank you very much. Good luck. Thank you. I think I can play it. Yeah. I just want to make sure that that's okay. Yeah. They have everything should be published. Yeah. We just sit at the station, and they'll work. So you'll have some of those parts together, you know, whatever from what it works. Yeah. Don't buy it. Okay. We just really screw this up. You'll get a copy. We're in mind. We'll record it. You just take it. Carol, do you want to hold on to all these? Do you need to do that again? Thanks again. Sure. Great holiday. OK, thanks you too. So you, your motion referred to the November 15th submission and as presented to the board on December 2nd, 2008. So that should probably be included. That's an example. Yeah. What should be included? This one. That's an example of that slide. Just if you're going to include that packet right there, just you can include it in the packet. This was it in the packet. What it was presented. I had that. OK, so all right. He only gave me. Presenting. No, I'm good. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right, next on our agenda is to speak with representatives from the Transportation Advisory Committee to review the warning beacon at Mill Street Miniman Bike Pass as required by the special moment for all the residents. So if I could invite folks up here. OK, so we, and just so Carol can take it down just that we can get it on here, if you could introduce yourself. That'd be great. Jeff Max Tutus from TAC. For me to say your name. I say we're from the art. From the staff. Leah. And Leah is on TAC for the Airbnb and planning commitment. Thanks. Great. So I'll start off then, Scott, you know what we'll add to it. So we formed a working group when ALTO was proposing their project a few years ago. And there was a traffic impact study done. And out of that, we identified a need for improving the safety at the bike path crossing at Mill Street and then a couple other items also as mitigation that they provided. But that's one of them. The issue was safety of crossings. There's a limited site distance, particularly for motorists. They can't see people coming up on the path quickly, especially if a bicycle's coming quick. They don't have time to react to that. So that hasn't been a lot of actually recorded accidents there, but a lot of near misses and frustration with motorists, pedestrians, and bicyclists. So we evaluated some options, and we thought this flashing beacon was a good solution that ALTO agreed to install. And then we would monitor the operations after the project was occupied. I understand the project's 80% or 95% or 90% occupied now. So it was installed by a contractor under the direction of an engineer for ALTO. There are some initial problems with the timing and detection of that signal. I mean, you may have talked about this before. I remember that's the crossing time with the flashing. It would flash yellow for motorists, no straight and red for folks on the bike path. And that crossing was too long initially. I forgot what it was, but we'd use 20. So it's now appropriate, some 15, 15 second range. We can't really get any shorter than that, because that only gets us a little bit Austrian in the far lane on Mill Street. So we went out there about 10 days ago. So that timing was fixed. And we did a site visit to monitor conditions about 10 days ago. And what we found was that the detection zone was appropriate. We marked it off. And it was detecting. You can see that there's an indicator light that goes on. But there wasn't enough power to empower the flashing lights. It was an overcast day. And we think it may be a power issue that the battery can't because it gets a lot of usage. Some of these other flashing beacons in other places, like the Bruce Freeman Trail, places like that, they're solar powered, but they don't get as many crossings as we get. And we think that that could be an issue of the solar panels in the batteries. May not be powerful enough to provide that many indications. And one of the other issues is the difference in the users in the bikes and the heads. Yeah, we know about the beacon itself. Two significant issues. One is a design issue. Is that the detection zone is going to be about 10 feet back from the, which is just right for pedestrians. But if you have a cyclist who's approaching and is preparing to stop, it will detect that person too. But it will be way too late for a cyclist who's coming at it fast. And to really make it dual mode, you would need to have two detectors. One aimed further upstream of the intersection along the path, calibrated to a higher speed than the existing one. Now, how well would this work, given the other issues? I don't know, but to me that's pretty complex. Yeah, it's kind of complex. But in terms of warning fast cyclists, it's doing nothing essentially. The other issue is Jeff alluded to is our working hypothesis is that it is a power issue. And this is because the outages have been more and more as the days have gotten shorter and darker. Last summer, not really a problem. And then we observed that occasionally it would switch on in the afternoon. It was a sunny day. And then we'd go out again. Is it LED? Don't think the flashing red is the, I'm not sure. Does that take less, a lot less energy if it was changed to LED? And they might put in a bigger battery too. Well, I think we asked DPW, get all the data you can on it, how much power each piece of it consumes, the battery size, and everything else. At this point, it's not working properly. And it was an issue that becomes really apparent when the days get shorter. If you're working perfectly as envisioned, what would be happening? What would the light be doing and when? And what would the people be doing? Well, I think I was going to say some of it's awareness for the motorists. And much as it indicates when someone's approaching, but if it's operating properly, if it's not flashing, actually it would have more comfort and there wouldn't be somebody there. So right now, before the flash was put in, a lot of people would stop or slow it on anyways, very cautiously, which is OK. Is it supposed to stop flashing when no one's there? Yes, right. Right. And that's what I saw informally. I noticed in the other place I look at a lot is Lake Street and there are people who often stop. You don't need to. And what I've seen is people on mail back when it was working during the summer, they would feel the confidence to go when the beacon wasn't on and they'd be cautious when the beacon was on, which is the behavior we want. So what are people on the path supposed to do? So it's as if the bicyclists are supposed to stop if they're mounted on a bicycle that they get off the pedestrian. Pedestrian has it right away. Vehicles have to yield to a pedestrian. Bicyclists that does not have the right away. Riding across the crosswalk, although they often act as they do. And this light, it's not going to change that. Maybe some signage. But they do get a red. They get a red flashing. They get a red flashing and there's a stop sign. But I think one source of confusion is researching laws around the country. Is that many other states, a bike and a crosswalk, is treated the same as a pedestrian? Which is a top of all here, but I think it is. But it does, if you understand that that is the role in some other states, it kind of explains the behavior that we're seeing. Is there a, I can't remember, a warning sign in addition to the flashing yellow on the road to tell people that it's there? If there's no body driving by, it's just there's no warning light on the bike path. That's just the thing. No, no, the warning detects path users. So if there's nobody, basically, the detection does not go to traffic on a military, it goes to traffic on the path. So if there's nobody on the path, there's no warning light. And just when it's working. Yeah, the one that's working. Yeah, there's a lot of light. When there's somebody on the path who's in 10 feet of the intersection, everything comes on whether there's any traffic on Milstreet or not. But if you're on the bike path, is there any warning of that intersection? There's no lights or anything that go on. Assertion of light, is there any signage? I'm sure there's no light. We have to double check. Yeah, it's the red light. It's usually a sign that you're on the track. Yeah, there's a sign of the bike itself. So, or of the person itself. So when the person comes into the zone, two things happen. One is, is the motorists get a flashing yellow on either side, the people on the path on either side. I'm assuming it's both. Get a red light. You get the red light. But what if there are no vehicles? The same thing. Because it's only, you always get a red light. You always get the red light. You always get the red light. I'm not going to activate on the bike path approach. Yeah. Always get a red light. So as you approach there, you'll always get a red light whether you're a pedestrian or something. So if there's no sign there and it's not working, somebody may not know there's an intersection if they're on their bike. Unless they're on their bike. Well, there is a sign there. It's kind of on the not-usual side going westbound. There's a stop sign also. Yeah, there's a stop sign there. And what I've seen on path behavior is they're aware that they're approaching a big road. It's very rare I see somebody just riding in of no awareness. So I guess part of the concern is that if you had been successful in changing people's behavior but the broken light, it probably harms things even worse. Because both are, you know, waiting for the blinking light. I've got no blinking light. I can go. Yellow blinking light. It's worse if they change their behavior for that. It's not working. It's someone's coming. So that's not a good thing. That's not a good thing. So from that perspective, do we? So I guess two questions. Number one, and maybe this is the more basic question for this discussion, is assuming it can be fixed, is it the right solution? Or, you know, is it some semblance of the right solution that just needs to be tweaked or what have you? And then if it's determined that it is the right solution, then what needs to be done in order to get it fixed? And I think those obviously are the two big questions. But with respect to it being the right solution, where's the tax kind of opinion of that, all things, you know, working well in order and everything else, where are your heads at after a year of it working, you know, or six months or however long you got it, when it was working okay? Yeah, I think it provides benefit. Okay. I don't think there's a perfect solution there. Right. But I think it does provide some safety benefit when it's working properly. Okay. The fast bikers are the ones that it's not ever going to work. I'm not sure it's ever going to. That's a problem, because we have a very successful path for all types of users, you know, commuters and recreationalists and weekends. It's also a problem if you approach on Mill Street in a vehicle and you stop and it's flashing yellow and you stop and the bike path users have passed and you're waiting for it to stop flashing and then the ones down here, the users down here, see that, oh, the traffic has stopped. So they start to race across when the light stops. The light's just about to stop. And that creates some weird misses too. Even when it is working. So is that acceptable? I mean, you have that situation without the light and then people are trying to talk. I don't think it's... It seems like we're telling people, don't worry, there's a light there. You can behave how you like. But to me, it creates a very uncomfortable ambiguity that wouldn't exist if there weren't a light. Or if we're going to have a light, it seems like we should have a traffic light. Yeah, I think... Let's talk about the objectives here. Two objectives are safety at the intersection for everyone. Mobility for path users, mobility for motorists on Mill Street. And one thing you'll point out first on safety, yeah, there's some near misses here and then a few crashes. But in terms of light crashes, there's far more along Mass Ave than in any of the path intersections. In terms of bicycle crashes of cars. Path intersections aren't even on the hotspot list for the most part. But there's always some room for improvement. I don't like it when the path users go in there very fast and cyclists, but also occasionally runners. The last person I gave it, Lake Street, was a runner. What did you finish? I wanted to ask you a question. Yeah, and similarly, drivers on Mill Street, especially coming fast off of summer, was our concern from safety standpoint. So we're trying to get everyone to slow down. Taking that right. Yeah, taking that right. Mobility, I think, I don't think it's a bottleneck yet for the Mill Street quarter that your two traffic lights are, but your real solution, not sure how well it would work, is a real traffic light. They are coordinated with the one up in Supper Street. But that's much, much bigger scale, much more expensive. You don't know how effective it would be because you're taking one set of issues and creating another. Yeah, if you coordinate for a significant other, the crossing is very close to summer, if you put that signal in, if you didn't coordinate the queuing issues, you know, spilling over, if you coordinate it, you're going to have longer queues on summer streets around the clearance times. Yes. It's close, but it's far enough apart that you'd have to clear that entire... operationally, it would be worse for traffic. Would it be safer? Maybe. I don't know. What are bikes going to do with the... Well, it's... We had a regular signal. I don't know. Put it this way, neither pedestrians or cyclists have all that much respect for traffic signals. If you put a signal in, you're going to expect pedestrians to wait and bicycles to wait on a delay, like you had a regular signal. Yeah. Some will wait and some won't. Yeah. Tom, how does it compare to... Oh, sorry. Well, it looks like on the bike path there are some modifications being made to certain sections. It has an approach mystic street now. I don't know if you're aware of this, but there's some change in the pavement. And it looks like maybe there's a... probably designed to slow people down as they're arriving at mystic street. And I'm wondering if that approach in conjunction with the blinking light system would rain in the bicycles who are going fast as they approach Middle Street. Or, you know, I guess in Lexington you have almost like a gate on some sections. Or bollards. Or bollards. Yeah, so... That doesn't ask. Have you given any thought to it? I'm not familiar with the thing with mystic street. Yeah, it just happened today. Like a textured pavement? It looks like there's two or three sections of textured paving that are going in. And I didn't have a chance to really ask anybody what they're doing. Maybe they're just doing the stamped... on the street. Which a lot of times they do with the media. Yeah. A lot of times they put in a media and with the bollard. And the bollard's on both sides to narrow it. So people have to slow down because you're narrowing it. A couple of comments. Well, one is when the path was first built they actually had these granite rumble strips coming into all the intersections. Then there were murder on the inline and there were inline skating. It was a much bigger thing back then. They were removed when the path was repaved because they themselves created some safety issues. Okay. I've heard, third hand, that Lexington is having some issues with the gates for emergency vehicle access. Okay. And one challenge of this is that you have your families with like the child in a trailer going slowly and you can't narrow it too much because you don't want that getting caught. And so what I've also seen is Lexington has had to increase the paving around the gates to give enough room to get by. So, you know, to the old cases it's like narrowing a road for traffic calming. Yeah. You're gonna be there. You've really messed up the trucks and you haven't been all that effective on the car drivers. Right. So, you're solving one problem. Yeah. Yeah. But if you just put, say, a bollard in the center and a bollard on the sides, it's a visual narrow. Good. It doesn't physically narrow it that much but it's enough to, you know, it's like street trees along a street make you go slower because visually you're feeling more confined. Like I would slow down, you know. A less experienced biker would slow down because... A prudent biker, maybe. Or what? A prudent. A prudent biker, yeah. And they also sometimes, in newer bike paths, mark right on the pavement in big white letters, a big cross and the words crossing. Yeah. Just as an extra warning ahead of time for the bikes. Yeah, one thing. A reserve judgment on the bollard idea is we can always think about what will cause more safety harm for people running into it than what you're doing. Pavement markings I see that make some sense. They're pretty scarce, like clear stop line, clear crosswalk. By the way, there's a sidewalk here. It's really a crosswalk. Could help. That would be easy. Yeah. The bollards are most of the time nowadays they put a median around it so that people see it and feel it in case they don't see it and see if they feel it. They drop the bumps. I know there was an emergency vehicle on the bike path just a couple weeks ago. So I don't know what the response would be from the emergency. Yeah, that would be interesting. That would be interesting. I can't comment on what they're saying. I think they'd have to be removable and unlocked at all times. But as, you know, I think the goal of slowing the bikers down is valid. Yeah, absolutely. How to do that when a trainer's own safety issue is like a question. How does that intersection compare to Lake Street? Because Lake Street gets seen through. I would say Lake Street sees more pedestrians traffic. More pedestrians, about half pedestrians. And the other thing about Lake Street is I think in the morning. And that's just because of the traffic around that neighborhood. It has become the bottleneck because it's feeding in from Lake and from Brooks all the time. And it's like, that's literally the bottleneck on that corridor. And so it is. I'm just wondering, comparing like pre-signal the two were kind of maybe they weren't ever equal intersections. They have their own particular things. And there's never been a flashing single light. So accident-wise I was just wondering. They're kind of comparable. A few. Even after the signal? No, no signal. No, I'm sorry. Pre-signal. You're saying pre-signal on Mill Street is comparable to Lake Street now? Do we think that there's been fewer accidents at Mill Street because of the signal? No, let's back up there. There are so few accidents we really can't tell. Okay, so there's that's fine. The other thing I noticed when I was watching this you know a bunch of us were out there watching what happens is there's that little Mill Street connector, whatever that thing is called. Yeah, it gets interesting when someone tries to turn left out there. Oh yeah. The one at the medical building? Yeah. No, no. Right next to that. That was why the westbound beacon had to be put on the wrong side of the path. Andy, we cut you off? No, that's fine. They asked all the right questions about the bike, slowing down the bikes I think. Let's go back to Mike's two picture questions. Is it the right solution and if so, how do we fix it? Do you have recommendations? What would the recommendation be for getting the signal to work consistently? One could be going to full you know traditional power in full time. Now that Lori, correct me if I'm wrong the town doesn't actually I'll say oh the equipment right now. I think that Wood Partners still owns it until sign off and the town accepts that signal operation. I don't think it's written that way. All that there is is this escrow fund $40,000 that we have a year from occupancy which is March. So this March 2014 the escrow can't supposed to be returned. So was that escrow used for the signal though? No. They used that. To adjust the signal or to take it out if we decide to do that. It's for the crossing really. There's no condition that says the town has to sign off on it per se. I suppose in the course of returning the money we are ready to do that. When the DPW researches it they may find that the newer they've just come out with new ones that are all LED that have a more sufficient battery. I just saw one demonstrated. And they're supposed to be far superior than the old ones I don't know how long ago that one was put in. Last winter. That's fairly new. But if it's not LED if the battery is too small maybe they're easy fixes. Or they replace that with one that works better all around because it has LED if it doesn't have the space for a bigger battery then you wouldn't put one in. So as WIT partners responsible for replacing it it's not working? Well I think we use the escrow fund to... Oh, if it's not working to begin with. Well no, it's not working right now. Right. Well the net is sort of one of the problems is that so we're working with this consultant who WIT partners had hired and he's kind of hasn't been all that reliable I think so. It's been a little bit hard to try new things. But we are running out of time really we have to make some decisions really soon. And we have funds. Do we know how much that cost? The whole time? Yeah. Not even bright boxes. The guy that is selling the new ones they're not that new actually. The light might be new. That might be the new number of lights. He said that there's a bunch of them around the stake on bike paths. Maybe you should get the name of your bike. It could be what's out there. Yeah, I could send that name. I think I have this. The electrician is stable. You know, they're local. I don't. But don't we contact WIT partners? They're still responsible for making it work. Well maybe what we do is we try to find out what we want. And then we tell them that that's what we want. I mean, if the consultant is not being extremely helpful maybe it makes a little bit more sense. So we get our consultants. Then we can't apply the 40 to that consultant. Yeah, I think we can. So we tell them, look, your consultant's not moving, we're going to use our own but it's applied to the 40k and then the remedy will be let you know. I mean, I don't really think you need a consultant at this point to get it working properly. Who would DPW's research be? Wayne. Wayne, we at the last tech meeting briefly discussed this. Research of their usage logs from the thing and what pieces that it consumes, how much power, etc. I could send Wayne the name that I know of. Well, could we go to the manufacturer or the current one and say do you know how to remedy this? That's what Wayne's doing. I think that was what Wayne was doing. He was trying to contact the manufacturer. I think he thought he was looking for some kind of specs that would help him debug it and was not able to find it. So he was going to then contact the manufacturer. That's the first step. Yeah, that would definitely be the first step. They may have, I'm sure they have, they've installed lots of different conditions that I may find that this could be remedied or might have to go to hard time. So I do think it's important to try to figure out whether we can get it working again. It sounds like the tech still believes that this is a good solution for that particular intersection. We still think that's benefit. But it also seems to me that maybe given the funds in March deadline, maybe some more thought into things that could be put on to the bike path itself for markings or maybe look into a volard or something. I don't know. I'd hate for us to lose this opportunity to be additive to what's already there and make it better. When last was born there's one early concept that few of us had was putting a little curve in the bike path right behind the development. Basically, do the visual thing. And I think that got shut down because it wasn't enough through. It's also a very steep slope on one side, so you have to do it all on the middle brook side. Really, it considered very much. I don't think there were any measurements or anything. It didn't get beyond the sketch stage. Just to have a little wiggle on the straight line. There was a big grass drift there. I think it was. I've seen that where you might have an opposing angle approach on the other side of the crossing. So it's not just physical but also physical. You've turned someone the wrong way. That did come up but I don't think it was. It didn't go anywhere. I think it's worth considering checking out to see if there is a space to try to achieve that. Physical is certainly stronger than visual. Especially for those commuters that do it every day. The visual gets lost. The big point is I don't want to say we have to spend the funds or anything like that. Definitely don't want to do that. But we do have access to them if we think that it can be made. Safer. If you could think a little bit more and we'll do the same and maybe we can in a month's time or a month and a half. Maybe we can do mid January so that we can actually have six weeks before it's up. We don't want to push it much more than that. Even a warning sign to the stop sign either painted or I think there's more that can be done with paint. Paint catches people's attention. Cross hatching signs get lost. We're even a real stop bar. It's a law that bikes have to stop at that stop sign. The bikes are treated the same as cars. It's supposed to stop at the stop bar. Maybe having some police officers there like they do at Lake Street. They did that for a few weeks. That's definitely getting beyond that harassment. Yeah. They did it at Lake Street. I understand, I'm just saying. It passed off flyers. I think they gave out their first ticket to a bicycle. It's not on though. On Lake Street? Well, this actually Jeff's point illustrates really the misunderstanding that people have on the law. This person was riding across Water Street. Down there. My car hit her. She hit a car. He said, if you'd just gotten off and walked that would have been the motorist fault then. Yeah. But I don't, yeah. I'll be going coming from one of those states where a lot of rules are different. Yeah. Well, I know that it's one thing, but death is another thing. I think this is the process we said we would monitor and evaluate we have been at that point. I think it's appropriate to consider maybe some additive stuff. Great. Well, anything else you want to spend more? Thank you. Anything from you folks? So do you want to have TAC come back in a month? Would you be willing in about six weeks time maybe? We've got the 16th and then right after it would be like January, well I won't say the second but whatever that, you know, maybe the fifth or whatever we'll take us to probably around the 19th. Which when is the March deadline? Oh. Is it early March or late March? I don't want to say mid-March. Mid-March? Yeah, so about six weeks. You know, the mid-January meeting might be a nice... January 13th maybe? Yeah. You'll be away on the 13th? 27th. It might be a little bit late, maybe have, you know what, if we did it that late maybe if you had a little bit better ideas, you know I mean, better ideas some more concrete ideas is what I meant by that. But also the manufacturer we should be able to get an answer on that fairly soon calling them and saying are there any remedies you know of to your product in a northeastern garden? I think he's already on the way. Well, the other thing the other thing that's unique is the automatic actuation and the extremely heavy usage of the pad. Right. I've seen a similar thing. We're going to have a warranty on this thing. I'm sure we do. That's the first thing at least to find out. Right. Well, I think you might get them moving a little bit better if they've not been as cooperative as you may have liked if all of a sudden you're saying if you're not going to go on the warranty then we're going to start dipping into the money. I think you'll see them move maybe a little bit faster on it. Do we know how many approximately how many times it goes off on an average day? Because that would help as Wayne talks to manufacturers because they may also, oh yeah, we can handle that but they don't know what they're handling. Right. That would kind of size the light for us. We have bright colors on the path, right? Well, it's like a couple well, I also had pedestrians so we're looking at a couple thousand a day. That's pretty good. So let's say like two thousand a day. So it's one of the busiest trails in the country. If you have that somewhere, that data, that would be helpful. That would be helpful to give to Wayne or so. Yeah. Because that does seem to be one of the problems with that. Yeah. I guess the other thing I should just mention is as we met, we're also looking at Lake Street which has somewhat similar issues and the third thing that I'm about to go over to the selectments being right after this is a tool design group took a look at the path as a whole with the three communities and A-BAC presenting our comments and they may have and it's also has some thoughts on what might be done about the intersections. So start looking at this on a tragedy basis. To coordinate. Yeah, I think one thing is we're very aware of it's a regional facility so we want to be consistent with what Lex and Benford do. That's true. Good for users. That consistency I think would help with that safety message of how you practice on the bike path. Successfully have Kate. Good. Thank you very much for coming out. I really appreciate it as usual. Great explanation. Good. Thanks Jeff. Thank you. And we'll coordinate the date. Okay, great. Thank you very much. You're welcome. Talking about meeting dates. Yes, next meeting do you think we'll have? We're scheduled for the fourth, yeah, I'm hopeful. What we're trying to do is stagger our this board's meetings on alternate Mondays to the board's to try it, yeah. We always seem to be in a rush and up against it. In years past I've tried to do that kind of limited because there are so many Monday holidays. So we end up there may be a month where you have to have a single meeting or two meetings in a row to stay alternate to the board. So we'll figure it out but we want board selection to issue their schedule first. And I understand that it's still in development. As soon as we have that I'll try to put together a draft schedule for you first. Any problems with Monday nights generally? So it's not like you have a permanent commitment on the off nights for the redevelopment board goods. Don't mind the world around this. Not that there's a lot to build. I appreciate your flexibility so I'm going to look for a pattern of like second and fourth Mondays but it's like I said it's not going to be that consistent that's what we'll work towards so that Monday night like tonight this board some members might want to come to your meeting. I think the other thing is too I don't think it's all that bad if we do miss a meeting along there because I think we all know that if we need to have a meeting we can try to schedule a meeting. We certainly did it during Sims when we get busy that happens near the August September timeframe when it quieted down a little bit there was no reason to make work either so I think it's fine if you come up with somewhere where maybe there's a stretch of two weeks there's two weeks in between so the third one just to avoid it I think that's fine because we can try to work a meeting in there if we need to. Does that make sense? All right. Well that's good. The next thing is more informational and just a discussion than anything else. It's the discuss the inventory of the Arlington 360 performance obligations. I think you might remember and none of them was at the last meeting but what we've asked Jonathan Buck at Fully Co-Act to do is to take a look at the LBA take a look at the special permit and come up with a matrix of obligations that need to be performed under each of those so that with a lot of staff help we can go back and take a look at those obligations and start checking boxes that Arlington 360 is indeed completed. So I got something from Jonathan last Wednesday right before Thanksgiving and it looked like one of those that okay I got to get this out and it needs some work so I didn't want to present it to the board yet and I'd like to go through it's got some markings on it needs to be cleaned up a little bit so my notion is to try to get that done sometime this week work with staff and get their comments on the matrix itself and then get it out to board members. Right now is a busy meeting if I'm not mistaken and in fact I have to be at two meetings at night. Yeah, so so it might be difficult to do it to go through the actual matrix at that meeting maybe we can at least discuss the matrix even if we can't check all the boxes but I'd like to at least get it on the agenda for the 16th maybe we'll be in a position to really kind of dig deep and get into it if it's possible that the developer has met its obligations because in the end I foresee the enforcement obviously the asking us for our opinion as to whether things have been met such as bombs etc and so I think it will be important for us to have a good concept of what's required and a good concept of whether we think it's been accomplished so that's just kind of so any comments? Does that sound like an okay plan for everybody? There's nothing coming up before we're able to review it it has to be adjusted that's the kind of thing I was worried about No, I mean but that's the point I mean before that if we push it off till January to go through it is there something in December? No, all this is pretty much this isn't deciding that they need to do something necessarily I mean if they haven't done it obviously they need to do it but I think staff when they're going through and something hasn't been done they're not going to wait for the board to say it hasn't been done this is not something it's a working list I'm thinking of the conservation restriction Right Is there like a list just to be sure we have a container with every obligation not necessarily to be able to look in the container and say oh these are all cooked but mostly just to be sure we have them all listed It's charting the course to the issuance of the final certificate of occupancy so when the building inspector says okay as everything's done we've got a chart that says yeah we've got check marks against all of these items so we're good and if you ask Jonathan Buck it's not even necessarily the final CO it's the completion certificate that they're going to request at the end is in his mind but we can go over that one go over the list it's when they come and say okay so we're done you know it's not necessarily let's hope he looks at it just a different maybe it's semantics but it's more a certificate of completion to say that all the conditions of the special permit correct exactly because in his opinion the certificate of occupancy is about health and safety okay so if you were to ask him by the letter of the law certificates of occupancy are only about health and safety right but I think I think where the concepts merge though a little bit is that that sense of completion is tied into the certificate of occupancy so they don't get a CFO without the certificate of completion I don't disagree but if you ask him he'll be like well that's not really in your wheelhouse the certificate of completion that is but it's like a punch list that could go on for a year if you don't try it to that correct so I think it's all the same we got to make it through the list regardless of what it is at the end of that and I think we're in a good position to do it I think Lauren Carroll are very familiar with many of the obligations and like I said it's not like we're going to hold it tight and not say this isn't done yet absolutely we'll be pushing to get those things done as we kind of go we're not waiting for a big bang it's not a pop quiz that's exactly right so anyway hopefully you'll see that coming out from Carroll sometime this week if not early next week and then be in a position to at least talk about it on December 16 so we've got are you and Jonathan communicating about you said that it needs a little more work is that in his court right now? it's probably mine because I think he's I know it's not in ours it's not in yours I want to simplify it right now it's pretty complex it needs less bows it needs less ribbons so that's my view of it anyway were you asking what's on the December 16th? yeah on December 16th possibly Millbrook are we definitely on for that? it's all on my calendar but I can't open my calendar on my phone that's fine I think it's a pretty but maybe we have a long meeting going into the holidays and everything else I might push us a little bit that night if that's okay with everybody we have a big group coming for this we have 11 men before right master plan advisory committee members I expect nine of them right the consultant may come she was interested and the I bet would be here is there anything else we want to we've never met them before at least as a board we've got one item which is the one we talked about is there anything else we want to communicate to them or to us do they want to what do you think? something that they should a great opportunity it is a great opportunity if we had comments on the sections that are out positive comments or negative that might be helpful for them to hear I mean is it kind of like a progress or not a progress report I don't want to just somebody talks about where they are actually that would be great that would be that would be nice like a 10 minute and face to face is a lot better that might be better than the consultant but the committee may know more after Thursday's meeting yeah I mean maybe that's master plan advisory committee meets this Thursday they haven't met since November 7th so they may have something to tell us they may they don't know yet because they haven't convened since since that big workshop so how about this if Judy can come and I think it would be nice if she could just a 10 or 15 minute kind of update on process where we are or Charlie update on process timing and next steps here a little bit of a summary but really we're talking about 15 minutes does the board have the schedule the current schedule I don't know that we have I think it's also a primer for us we are the approving board whatever schedule is being used I think it's a real good idea I guess I was just saying it's like the best we can see no no no no if we had the schedule we could react to it more informal 15 minutes that way and then maybe get you on the Millbrook for a half hour to 45 you know and then whatever I think could be short too because I don't want to overwhelm them with anything yeah well I think you know make the presentation like 20 and then 20 for questions or something like that and discussion would be probably the best column we'll just schedule an hour total maybe and do it that way okay yeah okay excellent can we go back to 30-50 mill speak for a moment just for the board's information you're aware that the property is being sold by wood partners I wasn't aware well I guess this is for information wood partners is selling 30-50 they're selling ALTA it's closing around the 20th of December so Laura's been in contact with Eddie Grady to be sure the buyer is informed of the affordable housing obligations but I also think it's important for us to be sure that wood partners is communicating at the time of closing in some manner the fact that there is public access in as a condition of the special permit this public access promised across the site from the bike path to the public park you may recall that I suggested strongly that it be recorded as an easement but it was felt I think persuasively it was argued persuasively that because it's a condition of the special permit that it was it would persist through future owners but that means that you will have to enforce that condition and monitor that condition so I guess two things you may want to consider a formal communication to ALTA and then a formal communication to the future owner I was hoping that you wouldn't have to monitor that condition with future owners but if it's not in the deed you're always going to have to monitor your conditions so the only I think that's fine with the board's permission if you wanted to draft up a letter I'd be happy to sign it my only concern is what other conditions are there that we're not saying something about that we I don't want to say that provide a copy of the special permit I think that's maybe among other things I think you can highlight a few among other things please see the special permit which is attached I think that's probably the right way to go about it just because in the end you know I just don't want to point out one or two things and think that the others aren't important when a flourishing beacon is something they should know that it's still on flag right but that as per as in our control it is in our control until March yeah no I'm saying that we have to release it so we could extend the release date if we needed to it doesn't say that but it is in our hands yeah we got that the literal first strings yeah that's why I'm sort of reminiscing about also I don't have much reminiscing to do because that was before my time there are some changes that were proposed at that time about the Mill Street Jason Street, Nassab intersection and Jason and I know that TAC I believe is presented to the Board of Selectment already but just wondering if anyone knows what the status of that is and is that tied into any of the escrow money that we have from ALTA? that was a CVS money yeah because we did that what about six months ago that's what I remember too what is they have hired an engineer and I believe that it's just basically like retiming and then the synchronization with the light up on and I think they were going to make certain lanes take a little bit off the median and take a lot of Jason to make two full lanes so that the intern lane so the engineering is being prepared now and then that would go to construction roughly probably the spring construction has to wait until the spring but with light timing I'm not sure if that could happen before and what's that CVS is that we've got enough time to do all that with the CVS? yes I believe we have five years with that one would you double check? 2010 to 2015 yeah I had an eye on that we've used some of their money I remember the optical and that is in so I worked in the other day oh really? yeah I've never seen it in action flashing to let the fire trucks in is it police too? they can override there's no fire I think it's any emergency but especially if you change it I don't know okay so thanks for bringing that up with Parker it is the special permit is recorded with the D but I don't think people always look at it well I would deal with that I would say it doesn't hurt to send this letter I'm all in favor of doing that but I think people would be rather remiss they're undertaking it I guarantee you that they're looking at it it's not about money exchange I don't want to sound cynical but it seems that they would always look at every document but it might be strategic for them to pretend they never saw it I don't think so it's easy for them to say later on if they can claim they weren't aware of it but I don't want to test that out I'm sure that someone is doing a zoning opinion on that and that would be one of the most essential documents that you would look at that's encouraging to hear so Jeff or Scott you thought it was is it around the 85-90% or full I have heard that I heard 85 from out long and it's good okay the next thing is the approval of the minutes we got a couple no shows the last time but one of the no shows actually I saw that too I saw that too from afar you think I wasn't here your spirit is always airy ended Bruce I have four quick ones here so third paragraph first line last word should be and instead of and maybe one three paragraphs I'm sorry the paragraph in the middle of the page that begins Mr. Care then reported that he asked outside council to coordinate and inventory okay then about two thirds of a way down the page sort of under that document the tracking report update and then the paragraph that follows there's a sentence that begins on the fourth line that reads the escrow was established in March and they intended to look in September and it I think would benefit from saying they intended to review it again or review the situation in September two lines below that in the sentence that reads the comment that it is no clear should be not clear to the board and you need the it is not clear that it is not clear thank you and then two more lines or the line below that where it says Mr. Care asked where is had been used successfully I think should say where it has been used successfully or where it has been it's okay but it should be it I don't understand what you're saying I just can't find it it's the exact line under the no clear line Mr. Care asked where it is where my last comment on the second page and the first paragraph I think Mike was only seconding motions as necessary because we had a three member board that night so on the last approval of the minutes that Andrew now moved to approve I seconded those I have no further changes aside from being confused with Andy so that one is you've got second separate paragraph there I'm just looking back in my notes to see who could have really it would have been it would have been Andrew yeah you probably saw the Andrew most of them had put Andy on I have one comment even though it wasn't there the paragraph about the work tracking report update where you're talking about the intersection of the minute man with mill street it's written in here that you're discussing the flashing signal and I'm thinking maybe it needs to be written like when it says on the third line the special permit calls for having transportation advisory committee evaluate it unless we're talking about the whole intersection and all of this the flashing signal seems to be the flashing beacon at the minute man yeah that's what I was thinking yeah that's fine or you could just replace it with flashing beacon evaluate the flashing beacon either way somewhere in there I think it should say flashing signal because I was wondering what are we evaluating because I wasn't here it's good for me not to appear sometimes alright I think those are you want to make a motion? I'll move to approve the minutes of November 18, 2013 as amended seconded and all in favor aye that's the three of us anything are we having a Christmas dinner? that's a good question you knew I was going to ask, didn't you? was that a year ago? it was I would never have guessed that and I'd be willing to organize it again I know I think it would be nice but why don't we try to do it how about a post holiday that early January meeting whatever we end up at right after New Year's maybe we'll have our meeting hopefully it won't be that long and maybe we can get somewhere around 8 o'clock or something does that make some sense? maybe we can hit one of the new restaurants we'll just keep our meeting open if we want to and we'll keep our meeting open and all who want to come over can come on over they have to pay okay that sounds good I like that idea I can't believe it's a year though that's the thing that I'm amazed at town meeting will be here before you know it it's open right? it is I think it's open today or tomorrow oh I thought it opened at the last 40 seconds I misread my calendar too you're more in the thick of things that doesn't mean I can keep track of the balls being pitched at me just that in the way alright the last thing on the agenda is I'll entertain a motion to adjourn so moved seconded all in favor alright