 feel for it. How are you? Hey. Hey, how's it going? It's going. It's going. Good. Hello, everybody. So, Gilbert, you haven't like started recording yet, right? Like we're still waiting, waiting. Thanks. We're suing to Governor Baker's March 12, 2020 orders to spending certain provisions of the Open Meeting Law. This meeting of the TAC, Amherst TAC is being conducted by a remote participation. This meeting is August 4th meeting is officially called to order. Are there any public comments? All right, so we have eight of us and I guess we have another person. So, Tade Coleman, he's in the audience. He is a new grad student at UMass and I'm happy with him if he wants to come in or if he wants to. I told him we invited people to our meetings, so I'm sure he'll be good. And he actually told me that he had applied to join the TAC, so how about that? Hello, nice to meet you. So, thank you for joining us. I don't see, do we have any, we don't have any old meeting minutes to approve? No, I hadn't seen anything from Amherst. We'll get them next time. And so the first order of business on our agenda is an update on the Lincoln Avenue. Sure. And that's you. I can give that update. And if Guilford has anything more to add. So after our last, right at our last TAC meeting, we went through the proposal for Lincoln's parking that had been submitted by Councillor Jennifer Todd, who lives on Lincoln. And then we had our recommendations and I wrote them up and I sent them around for comments, which came very kindly edited my document to make it sound so much better and compiled people's comments and thank you, everyone who weighed in. And then I submitted that document to TAC. I submitted that document to TSO and I presented it at their July 21st meeting. That item took up, there were a number of other items on the agenda. So we basically went through and we answered a number of questions. I did get the sense that most of the counselors there were, they were persuaded by the safety arguments that we had put forth and that had been put forth previously in the memo that the town manager had written a few years earlier, which had the recommendations based on input from the DPW, the fire chief, the police chief and so on about the safety concerns on Lincoln and they led with that. And so they decided that they would use the TAC's memo as the basis for what they would notice for the public hearing as potential changes for the parking on Lincoln. Under the town council, they do need to have a public hearing whenever there's going to be changes on parking on street. And so that all went pretty well. And then I wasn't there. And so at that time, the TSO, kindly after I presented, there were some questions about that we had said that the town should revisit the restrictions after three to six months, you know, after the new dorms at the corner of Math Ave and Lincoln are open. Those dorms will have eight over 830 beds between grad students, mainly undergrads and some grad students. And UMass really calculates that about 0.5 parking spaces per bed. So UMass will be providing 400 parking spaces for that new dorm. But only 100 of them are on site at close to those new dorms and others will be elsewhere on campus. As somebody who works on campus, I know Tate's now a grad student, sometimes parking can be pretty far away from where he would like it to be. So there were some questions about whether it was appropriate to wait that long. You know, I just, and I just said that I thought that we were, we want to be, and some people said too, why aren't we more restrictive on cents that are more restrictive in other areas? But I thought that it was good for us not to be too. I mean, I'd really like to see something like to see it get approved by the council. So I didn't want to be go too far in restricting direction. It can always be revisited anytime the council TSO thinks. And there were some interesting thoughts, like so Andy Steinberg, he also brought forth the idea about he, he asked whether you could have a sign as you enter our neighborhood, because one of the main issues with all the on-street parking on Lincoln is how close people park to the driveways and how that limits the sightlines. And sometimes they're even like into the driveway area. And so Andy Steinberg asked if you could have signage like when you enter the neighborhood, that just says, you know, you're not allowed to park near driveways. But then I said, well, it's possible that a lot of neighborhoods could ask for signs like that. So I don't know. I mean, so that was going to be investigated like with the police chief who was in present at the meeting. And later in the meeting, during the actual public comment. So right after that short discussion, the TSO did kindly take public comment both through Jennifer Topp who had brought forth their proposal as well as your resident who lives on sunset. And at the, but, and then I left the meeting went off on life. But at the end of the meeting, there was a public comment period at the end. And there was a resident who lives on Dana Place who walks on Lincoln to campus often. And sometimes he parks on Lincoln and he argued as he is argued in the Gazette and the Amherst Bulletin and other forums that all the parking on Lincoln should be free. And that we owe it to, you know, that it's very classist and it's hurting working people from UMass and students from UMass if we don't. And that's his point of view. And that's what he said. And he's also been on other social media lately, like making those same arguments. I mean, to me, that argument, I feel like his argument, he looks he works at UMass. So he could park at UMass. But it feels like he's giving UMass a pass and saying UMass as a public institution doesn't have that responsibility to speaking for myself. And so I don't know why he thinks that Amherst the town has a responsibility in UMass doesn't. So anyway, but I'm sure we will hear from him again. Oh, sorry. Go ahead. I was just curious if there was any thought to actually making the parking restrictions 24 hours. There was some I mean, there was some consideration on that too. I mean, some of the counselors were advocating for that. I was just curious, I mean, you know, the concern was about driving, parking close to Driveways, which in the middle of the day. Yeah, sure. But then at night as well, that could be I mean, there hasn't been. Yeah, there hasn't been that demands. Like, I mean, again, we don't know if it will change, right? But typically, like if you go on Lincoln now, like there's hardly any on street parking. And if you go on Lincoln on the weekends, there's any honestly, I mean, it's very tied to like the Monday through Friday campus hours. And so if that changes, they can revisit that. I know that House or Todd has already reached out to a number of the neighbors in that area. And some of them said they would be fine with like complete restriction. But it can be really not convenient for people who live in that neighbor, you know, or who visit or whatever. So I know. Good for the goo should be good for the gang, that sort of thing, right? If you're complaining about one thing, we need to make sure it's safe all the time. Right, I think the demand isn't there, then it's not an issue. But if the demand is only there certain times, I don't know. Guilford comments. We're taking bets that it'll be pretty much parked up the whole school year, 24 hours a day. Why? Well, do you know where one of the park one of the only parking lot we know of that they're working on actually two parking lots they're working on campus. One's down behind the Mullen Center next to the central steam plant. And the other one is over by Olympia Apartments, Olympia Drive. So there really is going to be no extra parking except on street parking in that whole neighborhood. So when students move in and we don't have a winter parking ban that says get off the street at midnight, you're going to have people parking their car continuously on that those streets in that area. So that's our that's what we're writing down a little we keep kind of informal pools that go on all the year for a soda. So that's what's in that one. So you think you think if there are no restrictions that it will people will just park there because because that did happen over at the end of last school year people were parking there all the time during the week. So has this I mean I've never attended any of those meetings like the town gown meetings you know with um have there been discussions about the parking demand on Lincoln and or just the area. No, I love that and those meetings either. I have not been to them either. I know counselors go to them. Okay well yeah I mean they can always the council can decide they need to do more too. So anyway but it's moving forward um they did the TSO is going to wait to have its public hearing until September when the students are back which will present some evidence already even without the new dorms of what that looks like. Um and I've heard tentatively it's scheduled for September 15th but I don't think that's confirmed yet but and people are welcome welcome to attend and then TSO is going to be taking up this item briefly on August 18th just to finalize the notice for the public hearing. I can't attend that meeting if anybody would like to be there just to you know say whatever the tech anything comes okay thanks Kim or if any you know if anybody else wanted to be there and just chime in chime in if something comes up I mean they did vote last time but you never know how it's going to go and perhaps the same person from Dana Place will show up again or whatever. Never know okay all right yeah so the the next agenda item is update on safe route to school sure is that Chris yeah so uh Chris and I can talk about that Chris did you want to talk first or go ahead Tracy okay so I'll just launch so um so we have been in communication with the district and Chris and I met with the safe route to school coordinator for western mass Lucy Freeman Bell last week um we are planning to have a kickoff event with the school district on the school districts back to school day like the day before the first day of school which will be on Wednesday school will be starting on Thursday um August 25th and it will be on Wednesday August 24th um just a table and they have that event they usually have had it in the past like pre-covid they had it on the common right where they have the school buses and different speakers and all this stuff and they're going to be doing it at Kendrick Park this year um so Lucy the safe routes to school coordinator will be there Chris will be there the whole time I'll be there part of the time um you know so we'll have a table we will be doing surveys to kind of get more feedback I know that um Deb Westmoreland from the district sent out a google survey towards the end of the year just to get feedback from people about if this is important to them and if anybody wants to volunteer so we'll be following up on that um and just hopefully getting people excited the tentative plan is um Lucy and Chris have a meeting next week with the yeah next week with the principals to follow up on the earlier meeting we had at the beginning of the summer just about trying to actually launch some promotional activities in the schools like walking school buses and things like that we're talking about doing um like a walking Wednesday you know starting in October where there'd be a different school like highlighted each Wednesday um and I believe like Wednesday the second Wednesday in October it's usually the first but this year it's the Amcorpore so the second Wednesday which is October 12th is is like international walk bike and roll to school day and maybe doing some events around that so we're just taking it easy with the school and um Chris and I had also worked on before school got out in the spring we went and we did observational counts about how many people were walking and biking to the school which I talked about before and um we took lots of pictures so Chris has been working on just a summary report for each school and she has the one for Fort River to show we could walk through it and see what feedback we have um and then I also have just to kind of I mean it's set up as a slideshow which I really like because we have a lot of pictures we have more pictures we could add um but then I also just have a summary document of just a few pages sort of outlining what we saw overall you know what we saw as a key issues and potential next steps which I'd like to get the tax feedback on it you know at this meeting to the extent possible and then maybe afterward and then just send it to the district like by the time of the meeting next week if you have any feedback so okay so Chris do you want to go through yours? I'll just add that Lucy and I are meeting so Deb Westmoreland is the one who's facilitating next week it's not just Lucy and I with right and the prince and the principals and assistant principals and the like facilities director and things like that right maybe yeah maybe it was a little and from the police department maybe so okay yeah I'm traveling then so I probably won't be at it okay so Chris do you want to show your slides? I actually don't really know how to do all right I can do it too um sorry I probably yeah so um Chris shared it on google docs I can send around a link I know gilford said after last week he doesn't use google back church it's fine I can also send like a copy um and if we make any changes I can help with those you know we can just make those edits in real time and then send gilford a later version so this is sort of the model it was it was based on what um I'll just pull it up right now it was based on what um Safer School does with their walk audits um that was more like a picture a picture yeah it's yeah but it's great I mean it's nice and I write lots of texts but I know nobody wants to read it so let's do that okay so here I'm gonna share um and people can you know interrupt us at any time so Chris can you see can you see it and yeah okay so do you want you want to walk through it and you can just yeah so just to be clear I mean the main audience for this document is the principals themselves and Deb and Mike Morris and Randy Sibley in the transportation department that's who the main audience is so this really isn't some document that we expect to be circulating around um it's more just to collect everybody's feedback and stay on point as to what we think the major um you know the major things that are going on as far as some safe routes to school are concerned so Chris I did give you like slide control I think you should be able to advance it yourself okay so where do I do that um go under view options I don't know or can you just hit like control so like or like you know whatever like the arrows or whatever to advance it oh yeah maybe I mean I just advanced this one but I didn't it said I asked if it gave you control and I did if that works sorry yeah otherwise okay all right we'll just advance okay so this is Fort River um we counted a total of five linguists and six walkers on the day that we were doing our our kind of visual count and they all came from the main street intersection main northeast southeast and Pelham Road none nobody came from anywhere else um we do not have what we are getting the number of kids who have a w next to their name so that's the number of kids who live within a mile and a half radius of the school and theoretically with a w next to their names means they could walk um or bike to school right so I do I do think that that excludes like people who live on roads that are considered dangerous to walk and and also like people with disabilities or other reasons that they can't walk but is that as a pro flies yeah is it it's not like walking it's around a radius so I'm oh interesting here are internal maps being made by Randy Sibley oh is the transportation person for the school district and he's just doing circular maps um a half mile a mile a mile and a half and we're just going to try to dot it out and capture um based on last year's um addresses and again that's that's not at all for public consumption but just to take a look at um where the neighborhoods are that are sort of pockets and groupings of students well and some of that information is available for any students who are eligible to take the bus which as we have found out it includes students within the one and a half miles you know if they're along a bus route that you can tell from the bus route like lists right because it says on the elementary school level it actually lists like each house and like how many people at each house how many students at each house right right yeah that's true um I guess we'll just have to dig into that a little bit more nobody really seems to know what the W means so um we just have to get more of a handle on that okay so just moving along Tracy yeah sure go ahead yeah um so we snapped a picture of southeast street um the part of southeast street that's in between the route nine intersection and the main street intersection um and you know just kind of showing what it looks like currently just moving along yeah okay sorry yeah thanks Tracy yeah that's good you know uh we've got some vegetation covering the you know sadly the kind of school zone flashers that go on between 8 and 8 20 in the morning um and that slows the speed to 20 during that time frame um and then we're showing the kind of part of south southeast street that's closer to the main street intersection so again these are just sort of pictures to get everybody on the same page right and then the third it's okay kind of yeah this would go through um our observations about the sidewalks um Tracy was able to pull data that shows that this particular stretch of southeast street sees 11,000 cars the um annual average daily traffic count on this section um is yeah I actually think that this is from par now that I'm it's like fun it was from the south from the building study I couldn't find that data from in the mass dot database but okay so we got to get back I'm just fixing it right now yeah and then just observing um what the speed limits are um the principles in particular are very concerned about speed on all the streets around their schools so I you know just getting us up to speed um and then where the flashers are and where the sidewalks are yeah I guess I like the idea just calling them like flashing signs or something I don't know and do you want me to actually do this as a whole presentation Tracy or Jess I I'm just it's up to you I mean it's yeah I'm just kind of quick noting you're going through pretty fast yeah yeah unless folks think I mean I'll say one thing I like I mean just I mean I've you know looked at these intersections a lot but the one one thing I do like about the main street intersection um is that well one that's where the crossing guard for Fort Rivers posted and two um one there's more signs there's more school zone signs there but then also for in each direction at that intersection there's like no turn on red signs um which is good good in terms of pedestrian safety now it did come up as a issue in terms of traffic flow at the elementary school building committee meeting um and people are saying well having no turn on red means you know it really it really constrains the traffic there I mean there are ways you could set the no turn on red signs to be like school you could have like more interactive signs that like the no turn on red could only be if you like hit the pedestrian crossing button or something like that so it's wouldn't be all the time and I've seen some intersections where that's been implemented and it it seems like it works great so long term if the town wanted to change yeah yeah there um so I the next section um yeah um route nine the actual route nine intersection and then that's three pages long and then the the following section is the main street intersection so um yeah I mean I think we want to be on the same page with the principals and the school about what is actually what's the state of things right now and then what are the improvements that they would like to see made um and try to allay you know it's like some of the principals will just say oh it's completely and totally unsafe but you know that's actually not true especially when it comes to the main street southeast street northeast street intersection so the hope is that these um pictorial audits just help ground everybody in the reality of what is there already and then can ground everybody on the recommendations that I think it would be nice here on in this one to add like a few slides with Pelham or just like Pelham Road do you have Pelham Road on here just because it's so um it's such a bad road it's such a bad sidewalk it's narrow and it's got mailboxes installed all over it and some places are very narrow yeah um one thing that was news to me at Fort River which I hadn't been aware of is that from Pelham Road like over to the back of Fort River there is like a path um which is behind Pickering coming which is what yeah behind Pickering coming yeah you already have a picture yeah we do have it but I'm saying until I was like on site I didn't realize that though the staff said it's not you know that well maintained and that it's not cleared in the winter and things like that and the day we are there we didn't see anybody on it um but it's it is nice to have it and parents from Echo Hill told me that it's um it's this is a path actually oh so that's from Pelham Road yeah it's from Pelham Road if you're at the Pickering I mean I took some other pictures if you're at the Pickering site it you just go to like the back and it's a path it has lights yeah yeah who um who owns the road it owns the footpath I think it's the disc I don't know I mean and it says that you don't like see there's these signs I'm gonna stop sharing I'm just gonna share like a couple pictures if I can pull it up but um it says like no no trespassing and stuff like that so I assume it's a town school sign it's the belongs all the elementary schools belong to the town okay that parcel is a parcel for Fort River it's part of Fort River's parcel so that means Fort River takes care of the maintenance they should right yeah I mean um I think the kind of key part of this document will be the end is the recommend yeah and I think that's when we want our observations and Deb and you know Tammy who is the principal at Fort River right now the interim principal we want to all be on the same page literally about what are the recommendations and what are and some of them are going to be probably pretty easy like let's clear the vegetation from in front of the school zone flashing light um some of them are going to be a heavier lift and maybe a longer haul but um I think we all just want to have a sense of prioritization and what are the things that we actually want and then in Tammy's case we're really with all the principals they're just knee jerk reaction is that everything is so unsafe that you know like it's just why would we even ask kids to walk and you know again this is just an effort to get everybody um in agreement about what the state of the situation is right now and in Fort River's example like the the main street intersection is pretty darn safe and not shockingly that's where the walkers and the bikers are coming from and so you know if we can put in some effort in another and a couple other places maybe we can I mean we've already gotten feedback from people walking from south of the root nine intersection coming up to the school that they feel unsafe at the root nine intersection so you know what can we do to up the standard there and increase the perception of safety well and Chris Bressup right you told us at one of the meetings that Planning Head applied for grant to improve the sidewalks to Colonial Village along I guess it's is it root nine and southeast street or just along root nine it's just along root nine okay so and there there are sidewalks south of that intersection along southeast street and they end at Colonial Village too but they're they're in pretty good shape besides yeah no they are yeah yeah it's like the actual intersection itself is you know the crosswalks are faded it doesn't have some of the other protections that you're talking about like the no turn on red scenario like the main street intersection does and and we heard that direct feedback from a couple of the families who live down there and well and like somebody from Stanley Street right there's families on Stanley Street yeah the family they are a group of kids who walk or bike and it's Stanley Street and Colonial Village Billford has his hand up so if everyone in your meeting that you had says Fort River is so dangerous why did everyone in your meeting vote for Fort River to be the site of the school you know I have to say I mean I didn't hear that I didn't hear everybody at that meeting say that Fort River was so dangerous why are we doing all this work yeah Tammy definitely has the knee jerk but again is the interim principal not sure that I honestly you know compared to Nick at Wildwood and Derek at you know Crocker Farm who have literally been principals for decades at these schools Tammy is new and her just general thing is that yeah she didn't think it was particularly safe and so this document would again the goal of this document is for all of us just to understand the state of things now and then pick and choose well and I mean I didn't attend very many of the elementary school building committees but I did attend some and I also read some of those traffic reports including the one that was like 300 400 pages with all the appendices of all the counts I mean the reality is that the school building committee they looked at a number of criteria they had a matrix for scoring and that the walkability was one factor like the pedestrian safety was one factor of many factors and so between the Wildwood and Fort River sites the majority of committee members didn't see like a huge huge difference between Fort River and Wildwood I mean some felt that Wildwood was safer but not everybody did consistently and so I mean there were many other factors including just the disruption on the site and the one point of access at Wildwood and other things I mean you can go back and look at the matrix that they used but so I wasn't there one thing that the building committee is doing and working on is they are going to probably do an intersection analysis of the whole intersection and bring a consultant in to do that so it would be college street southeast street main street southeast street and the two driveways so that is something that town's looking at doing yeah are you saying in kind of in concert with timeline of the the new school or a sort of like a separate thing or it's going to be it's going to be a separate thing in concert with the development of the school because the school building authority is not going to pay for any intersection improvements we have to take money from other town projects or any any of the money we get for other grants to pay for any improvements of this these two intersections right well or you could I mean with the saverage to school I mean this is the one reason I think the district might be interested is right that the saverage to school infrastructure program will like pay for intersection improvements if they're improving safe routes to school like that are up to two miles away from the school yes and because you can make that argument that it's like related to like the school walk ability and stuff so correct which is which goes back to the other thing is that they voted for the school site and the town's kind of said you know this was not the best choice and we're not going to put a lot of road money into the site that's otherwise going to other stuff so grants are going to be needed safe routes to school grant um we're going to probably have to go for wait wait wait can you repeat what you just said I didn't understand that um the the town has said that we're not going to spend that much town money to improve these intersections um so grants will be needed we're going to have to go safe routes to school a mass works grant or actually it's called one stop grants now those things will probably have to be done and a lot of the work will probably fall to will fall to committee people who are willing to work with the school to get those applications in the town will put the money in because the town disagrees with the site location or because we have other priorities and to fix something that's going to cost more than it should cost if you'd gone to the other school site it's not really they're not going to give any more money just because you chose a site that has the biggest cost for improvements okay okay yeah I mean I don't that's I mean that's sort of beyond like the tax scope no no but I'm just saying no no no I understand I think you're going to right you're going the right direction then trying to push forward to all these safe routes to school and all these other things right that money is going to be needed to make the site safer because I don't think there's going to be any extra anything beyond what was already kind of scope for these areas to go there okay good all right yeah and I mean just to set everybody's expectations I'm definitely not anticipating the district applying for any grants like in the next six months I think there's still a lot of education a lot of the district principals at including the principal the district management including the principals everybody just needs to be on the same page about the sites and about what's wanted where the parent volunteers are going to make the biggest impact and currently that's not the case and so these documents are and Tracy's documents are efforts to try to get to that place with the district management right and the reality too is like what I understood with that traffic analysis of that intersection is that it is already you know one of the most congested challenging intersections in Amherst right and that's even before the school population is expanded in the vicinity so I mean you can make a case for like improving it I mean that that corridor typically like pre-covid I just remember the college street corridor from like southeast street into town it's like it's one of those corridors that will take you you know 10 15 minutes or longer to go like a mile you know it's just it's a bad corridor in terms of the congestion especially UMass related congestion but Chris has your hand oh yeah so am I muted no um so there are a lot of moving parts here because we have the school that is being renovated and we also have east street school that's going to be renovated and units are going to be added there and we also have property that we've acquired on Belcher Town Road that's a little bit east of the old Sonoco station that's going to be renovated to provide more housing so I think there's a total of like I don't know 60 or 70 housing units that are going to be added there so that's going to be adding to the traffic and adding to the pedestrians and adding to the children who are coming to the school so it really has to be kind of thought of as a whole package and you know what you're doing now is like an incremental step towards making them areas safer but in the long run it's going to have to be you know a bigger a bigger look and I think Guilford is talking about hiring you know the consultant that usually works with us which I think is CDM more to analyze that whole stretch of southeast street and the intersections and figure out you know what's the best way of improving that area and the planning department and the DPW always work together to you know get grants and when you know grant opportunities come up right now we're looking at getting community development block grant money for some things and we're also we always have an eye out for infrastructure projects so you know when mass works or one stop opens up in the winter maybe we'll know enough about what improvements we want here so we could apply for some money to here so it's I guess all I'm saying is there's a lot happening here and we need to kind of think about it all together and not just be like looking at smaller details but no I I mean so ours we were doing in the context of safe routes to school and trying to relaunch it with the schools I mean it could lead up to one of the safest to school grants but it seemed that I mean given the very small I mean and I can kind of go through what I presented you know what I had put together too but given the very small numbers of students who currently walk and bike to school I mean traditionally like pre-COVID there were more you know people are what we've heard from the school facilities and transportation people is that many students are still not back to riding the bus like there are a lot more parents still driving because during COVID the district really said if you can drive your own kids please do and please don't take the bus for COVID you know we don't have a lot of bus staffing we don't want to have to run more and more buses and so that still is lingering a little bit um and that I mean I understand you know historically there were some like Wildwood or other places there were some pretty big numbers of kids walking biking to school but it's really not there anymore so what we were doing is we were just you know providing an overall you know we did the counts and we looked over all the conditions and then moving forward I mean of course the district would have to work with the town on infrastructure improvements and so on but it seems that just with the numbers so low currently of who's walking to school like that you really a lot of it also is just about you know doing promotional activities and things to try to encourage some of it and I mean the middle school and high school they have committees that are I mean student led initiative so about climate change and things and just trying to tie into that if people think it's safe enough to do right I mean there is a certain um for most of this I mean there is a certain perception even at places like Wildwood and stuff that it's not that safe I mean you know so I mean this is just a baseline and really from this point on I mean we're I mean if tack I mean if tack is asked to get involved on some of like the infrastructure pieces um but it would really be the district collaborating with the town and from this point on we just wanted to say like these are the baseline conditions of what stuff is now and then and then from I mean I mean I can't really speak for Christine but my understanding is just working you know in education and stuff like with students at the schools and kind of doing that those type of activities and maybe doing like if we can collaborate with like the police department too about like speed enforcement or something like that because at every single school we heard that the speeds are an issue right in that so I mean even at Crocker Farm like we were hearing that even when the school buses are like trying to turn left out of the driveway and things that they're getting honked at because cars have to slow down and things so I mean there's this culture that people have to go faster and faster so um just maybe addressing some of that but sorry just a quick intro I have to leave unfortunately okay so I will see you guys next time sure thank you bye Marcus okay Christine do you want to comment yeah I just um see the um the principals wanting to make some modest improvements now and I think um I mean that's good feedback I think Fort River in particular needs to keep the long view but also you know there are going to be some suggestions about um you know removing vegetation and cleaning debris um you know potentially putting up some more schools own signs I think it's all stuff that's not gonna um that I think we can do to enhance safety now or the perception of safety now that um isn't going to be out of sync or somehow stiny um a good thorough long-term plan yeah that makes sense so I can go ahead and like kind of just overview what I'd put together and see I would it would be helpful I think before we take it to the principals to have like an endorsement from TAC and and we don't only this doesn't need to be like the Chris and Tracy show if anybody else has the comments or things like that I mean does it seem like a good activity for TAC to be doing any feedback and Bruce came to our subcommittee meeting so I think it's it's excellent you've done this work and thank you and I think considering there is going to be a new school at that particular site this is this is extremely timely yeah and certainly also I I concur I mean my real hesitation with the location of that school with the school was the location and all of the limited times I have to go there and how um I can see that it's not a very I I'm not sure I would feel safe sending my kids walking you know across those intersections as well um but it's also important to remember that I mean I the you know all the schools are going to be used for at least the next couple years right so um you know all the school I'm thinking about Wildwood too I mean it's still going to be in use for the next couple years so you know any improvements we can do to any of these school I mean and Crocker farm right I mean yeah I mean Derek Shay is always concerned about safety at Crocker farm and so yeah so so as I said um we talked about this and we were working at this at the subcommittee meeting we got feedback from Bruce and Guilford and um so I can just kind of walk through it and I can send it out if people want to like look at it more thoroughly I apologize for not sending out much before the meeting um so this is the sum of I mean it does overlap with what Chris was just presenting um you know overall so what we are doing here is we were just trying to do like a baseline conditions report as part of this safe reach to school initiative with the schools to help kick it off um right so our overall findings were just that there really aren't that many students walking or biking to school um you know it's interesting that consultant for the elementary school building study they had done walking counts um in the winter and basically the counts like in the spring and like good weather are almost the same and it's very close to like 10 students 15 students at most the only school that had more students walking is Crocker farm because one there's an apartment complex or the condos like the Jeffrey Amherst apartments that are right next to the school driveway and there's also the neighborhood with Mount Holyoke Drive and there's a path literally from that neighborhood like to the school and that's the only school that has housing that close and it's reflected because the school buses don't come down there and so on and so we did find I mean we are still trying to clarify with the W's but it seems that the current district practice is even for students who live within a mile and a half and in you know in olden times would be asked to walk to school um they really aren't being asked to do that anymore if the school bus is still going by them like along on their route to school and the school bus will would still pick them up and so the days when they would say like entire areas had to walk to school is not I don't think happening this much but we are still trying to get some clarification from that so so the overall right there were a few students walking or biking to school and we found some strengths and weaknesses I mean again you know when you hear some of the people talk about how you know endangered is to walk or bike to some of these schools it I don't think it reflects that we do have some infrastructure then certain other places like they wouldn't even have sidewalks or they wouldn't even have like anything and so even though our sidewalks could be better our crosswalks could be better the intersections could be better like it's not like we don't have anything and what I was hearing is that one of the main concerns is the speed right so all the way from like route nine on route nine all the way from the intersection we're talking about like all the way out to rolling green and things there's a sidewalk you know is the sidewalk as well maintained as it could be no you know is the traffic but really the main concern there is that do you want kids to walk next to a road that's like got such busy traffic even if they don't have to cross it and at what age would parents feel comfortable having their kids do that so you know so overall what you're saying that you know basically there are sidewalks or off-road pedestrian paths from most common to school routes at each of the elementary schools you know the main intersections have crosswalks and they have the traffic lights with pedestrian crossing signals which is something we didn't see that like Palma Roy lane for example right that's a place where people are crossing it doesn't even have a pedestrian crossing signal at all so it's really great though that's being redesigned and you know and they do have school zone signs at each school and the reduced speed limit signs and things like that in terms of areas for improvement and feel free to like raise your hand if you have any additional comments again the traffic speed that was mentioned consistently you know and that there are safety concerns with students crossing specific streets and intersections so of course so for we were just talking about it right that the main intersection challenging intersection is the route nine intersection and then also just the Pelham Road when the sidewalk is so bad at Wildwood I mean to me a safety issue at Wildwood is just a crosswalk at East Pleasant and Strong and in our subcommittee meeting Bruce mentioned how he's almost been hit trying to cross there and that the crossing guard generally there for this limited time you know there's no flashing lights or anything the cars coming from UMass are coming downhill it is quite a few cars so before COVID it was up to like over 7,000 vehicles a day we're going through that intersection and there are another you know 3,000 cars on Strong and so it's a lot of cars and and I would love to see some more something done there to make that crossing safer I know like Eve Vogel she had mentioned how when her child wasn't at Wildwood and she wanted him to self dismiss and walk over to her office that the staff at the Wildwood office were always concerned about the safety of crossing at that intersection I don't know Kim and your students your kids went to Wildwood yeah but there's yeah they walked a lot and they wore their bikes but there's always a crossing guard at that at the dismissal and entry time so but isn't it like sometimes and windows kind of narrow like or that's what I've heard I don't know it is but I mean it's totally okay I mean there's like a half an hour around the I I know my kid somebody there so I felt like that was I agree it's not the safest crossing but if one was to you know if a kid was trying to be doing that themselves because they have to definitely negotiate with the cars we have to watch a car and make sure that it stops right which is sometimes above a child's ability but sure are there it's a pretty well marked crossing area too well there's good signs yeah right I guess a question Christine and because Christine her child will also cross over I've been under the impression that the crossing guards aren't there for half an hour but maybe I'm wrong maybe we can get some clarification from the district about how long I know I think the crossing the crossing guards are there the crossing guards know who to expect yeah they do as well and that's and so that's important because they will stick around for my daughter okay good night if she's a minute if she's a couple minutes late but I do think that that intersection and Bruce maybe it's just something to bring up separately with the district for counselors just for everybody's safety that would be a good candidate to have one or what are they called the RRFIs yeah I agree because you're right it is kind of downhill and on straight away yeah and then the and then not to jump the gun but Crocker Farm right the west street section right in front of the school the speed limit on either side northbound and southbound is 40 miles an hour and then the two school zone flashers are literally right at the driveway so drivers speeding by at 40 suddenly have to slow down to 20 they have you know 50 yards 20 25 yards to do it and then and then they're speeding back up again and that's the case on both sides and so you can absolutely understand why a person with their kid you know walking over from that side that section you know Farmington Road or that whole area back behind Mission King Richard Valley yeah like you just you would not want your kid doing that it's just too scary well and Derek Shay brought up when we were on site about the Pomeroy Lane intersection which is why I put it on the agenda just to see yeah updates anyway I'm yeah I'm sorry for just I didn't know that's fine yeah totally changed this topic to well on the other thing that came up the other thing that came up at Wildwood that the principal um was concerned about is he was concerned about people from village um students from village park and families from village park who walk through the cemetery and how they cross Strong Street because there isn't a crosswalk there oh yeah they come out there's no crosswalk there's no sidewalk on that north side of the street and then there are there's no crosswalk for them either you know whether you can do improvements there so if if there ever had been around about there is what's being talked about that would help with that pedestrian crossings but I'm sure that's not in the cards anymore um right okay yeah so just with Crocker Farm like Crocker Farm I know that they're always concerned about just the crossings the various crossings along one such scene which she's well talked about you know from Mill Lane and East Hadley Road and everything um so we also found just you know summarizing what uh Chris had brought up in her little slideshow about you know that just some sidewalks and paths could be better maintained including like clearing in the winter um plowing materials post winter being repaired things like that um um we did we did I mean I I wasn't aware of this until Guilford had um told us this at the subcommittee meeting but it's actually the responsibility just like it's a responsibility of the adjacent property owners to take care of snow removal on sidewalks it's also the responsibility of adjacent property owners to clear things like sand and debris and things like that to keep the sidewalks clean um and I have a feeling I mean I've lived in the air for a while and I didn't know that not that I have a sidewalk maybe that's why but I have a feeling that a lot of property owners don't really necessarily see that as their responsibility they're like oh these are town sidewalks they should be cleaning it or whatever so maybe we could do a campaign on that I do suggest that later on um and just also just as we were saying with the vegetation and particularly now at the end of the summer there's a lot of signs a lot of speed signs a lot of signs you can't see I did not feel comfortable at Fort River that that little bypass near the bank that the stop sign is completely obscured now by vegetation and the crosswalk isn't even marked anymore and even as a grown-up I was like I didn't feel like I would feel comfortable crossing there let alone any kind of kid heading towards or not um so um so just as just the next steps you know in terms of the infrastructure just trimming the vegetation and doing some inventory about the signs I mean that came up to in that elementary school building study report you know that they had identified that some of them aren't consistent you know with the current engineering standards um you know identify crossings and crosswalks near the schools that are need a better marking repainting things like that um doing some minor side work improvements as possible and then you know after these inventories are done perhaps look at some of the smaller grant funding like the signs and lines grant funding from Savings to school to help pay for some upgrades repairs new signs and so on and um again and I'd really like to see and maybe this isn't actually short term but just no removal um because it's come up to that like near some of the school sometimes some of the key paths or sidewalks that students would walk on like that they're blocked up we know when you have snow like for example sometimes I guess the wild would drive away I don't know Kim did your students walk did your kids walk in the winter but sometimes the plows with the wild would drive away will like block the sidewalk and then where are the students left to walk I'm not sure how much that happens but um okay and then just longer term you know it's it seems like one challenge is just overall just having maintenance for you know road infrastructure sidewalk infrastructure like all these great facilities that we're building where we're improving things that what's the maintenance budget look like and making sure and this kind of goes back to you know back when Eve was on the committee and she sort of outlined some like annual things that should be done in terms of like repainting the bike lanes or repainting the crosswalks and things like that but the maintenance piece is important and I know that there are so many competing budget priorities but I'm hoping that we can have like renewed commitment to that so so Tracy I'm wondering if with the safe routes to school you know with the schools being so invested potentially you know they know where the issues are um if there is money that can go to the schools to hire people to say do things like clear snow from particular paths around the school um as opposed to putting it back on the town you know because schools know much more what needs to get done and when it's done as opposed to the town who maybe has you know people who do sidewalks but they get to it when they can right I mean is there money for that I mean I don't know I mean when we are I mean this document I'm preparing here is for the schools more than the town um but I don't know what the budgets look like on the school side but I'm just saying are the money the grant money could it go to school who who does it go to and is there like because because I hear this all the time right about about maintenance stuff which is really I know I agree with you I mean I don't know Christine Breston might have more information it seems to me that a lot of grants are set up like for the infrastructure like they're set up to build things they're not set up to keep them going right and I think that's a challenge that we see in Hadley the challenge that makes me crazy that you have this beautiful sidewalk that no one takes responsibility for keeping its shoveled like on route nine between the university drive and the Hampshire mall right or even getting a cheese says it's not them you know state duty says it's not their job the town says it's not their job property owners say no it's not nobody you know so I mean this the maintenance piece is always huge so I don't know that's not really a short term thing to figure out maintenance but like long you know but there's conversations yeah I don't know about the safe routes to school and maybe that's something we can ask them like say you know hey come on it's not just building these things it's maintaining these things because that's the real issue and maybe that's a good question for the state DOT too right the state DOT can funding all these things I agree I'm just to interject with my wildwood experience you know in a snowy conditions it is a challenge so the maintenance guys are actually the crossing guards so they have to hustle you know arrive early in a snowstorm and get out to east pleasant and strong to you know during the time frame that the kids are arriving and then if they have time they're the ones who are shoveling off the section of strong sidewalk right the plot town plows go by and throw this back onto the sidewalk yeah it's just this whole like thing where the you know the maintenance guy who's also the crossing guard can't be doing maintenance while he's also doing the crossing guard duty and shepherd the kids who are walking in the road at this point down there's a and there's a lot to shovel yeah despite the fact that he already shoveled on his way up no no to the to the intersection so it does get dicey and I'm not sure that there are easy solutions you know to those to to that type of situation I think you know right trying to have more crop I know in I think more crossing guards are being able to boost the numbers of maintenance guys who are out and about on snowy days might be a good um you know you could talk about just as an internal discussion right but but I guess what I'm saying is I like I appreciate those hurdles but at the same time if the schools had discretionary money for these kinds of things like cleaning sidewalks even you know brushing off the sand after you know after the winter as well as shoveling it might you know you could hire someone on a temporary basis it doesn't you know could hire some high schoolers to do this I don't know but you know if the schools had more power to you to to do the kind of thing because I don't think it's a town thing because the town doesn't have the same you know doesn't have the same understanding that the schools do I'm just wondering that might be no I know and I mean the staffing it is interesting to me it is interesting to me that Amherst uses it's like custodians to be the crossing guards because I've been everything the customers are as far as I can tell do everything you know school bus drivers also deliver the mail and do I just um because if you look at a lot of other communities including western mass like they hire crossing guards and their one and only job is to be the crossing guards and to but these guys especially as Chris was saying like in a winter condition I mean they have a lot of area at the schools to clear like aside from you know you have the main driveway and the parking areas but you have like the playground you have so much to do and it's challenging it's definitely very challenging yeah I don't know I mean maybe I don't know how much flexibility is in the school budgets I mean that's something we can bring up right but it wouldn't be the one so I guess what I'm asking yeah first roots to school if we could actually give money to the schools to do things right maintenance so that they have the ability to take care of the things that they know and I'm just wondering you know I might not exist right now but maybe that's something we should ask for because well why don't we um yeah I mean that can be a discussion you know with the safer school contact we can contact her um and that can also be something that comes up when Chris and she and Lucy meet with the district too I don't know I mean yeah I mean the town staff and the I mean everybody all the staff work really hard I'm not sure you know and I know that like Derek Shea one idea he had is he was looking at the model with crossing guards that she's in the UK where you actually the government like the state government there or the provincial government whatever they pay for the crossing guards it's not decided like a district right district level they're actually like employees of larger government and because it's an initiative and they have crossing guards like at every you know main intersection and stuff so yeah those are good questions okay and then um yeah so then just longer term you know just trying to find things to really do like traffic calming and other stuff like that and then and this is and the last part here was just you know creating the climate to encourage more students to walk bike and roll to school you know having an event like that's the kind of stuff that we've been talking to the district about and also you know where we would need PGOs or other volunteers to get engaged and and do some of that and see you know if the if Phil Laramie or some other officer from the Amherst PD is available to do some of the stuff or you know if there could be more police department speed enforcement and and also more crossing guard staffing I mean maybe even some volunteers would be willing to do it you know if you do it as an extended thing with this thing where we're talking about like walking wedding stage you know maybe getting some parents to sign up to help and I mean it's tricky with volunteers because you want you want volunteers who you know will be there right you don't want parents to assume that they're going to be a crossing guard and then because it's a volunteer they're not there or something I don't know but so those are sort of our main takeaways which is more than our main ideas which is more than we've had in the past you know because I was trying to connect with the district on safe reach to school for a few years and I got nowhere and Chris got got in and she got Deb Westmoreland interested and the principals are interested now too yeah that's great well they don't want it on their plate they want other people to do it like so because of course I don't know if that's true I know I I think they're just busy everybody's busy yeah and once presented with the evidence right so they're just they're reasonable people and it's like oh yeah of course when's the last time anybody asked if the path to Pelham Road was cleaned off and you know that a priority or not like it just I it's it's everybody is really making an effort to revisit all of this and I think I'm not sure we're expecting no an infrastructure overhaul in the next year but you know the conversation is getting started and hopefully priorities will coalesce and yeah get involved and and it was great I mean even getting all the principals in the room together and talking about it and things so yeah that's a real that's a good job so yeah okay great and then I just I would like to take credit but it's I mean I literally just asked Deb and she was just like oh my god yeah and it does seem like it's something that Mike Morris and Debbie are truly interested in you know making happen so good here we are hey so um Guilford I did have just a data question for you do we have traffic counts on 116 do you have like town traffic counts for no we use the ones that Pioneer Valley Planning Commission does every year okay all right we use those okay they were just out in town doing counts recently also because what weren't there must have been were there some counts with like Pomeroy too or I know that was strong COVID but okay there were counts there were some old counts done as well and then they did some extrapolation okay so are those traffic counts are they available um on the town website are they available through the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission where do you work in the ones the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission has you can get from them directly okay and the ones in town have you have to ask and we have to dig them out somewhere is there but is there a list of like where they've been done or there is no okay so what do you got does anybody have so um Chris and Lucy are going to meet with the district next week and you know present some of this information of if anybody has any other comments if not we we are you know we only have 20 minutes left in the meeting and uh it looks like we lost Tate and uh but we can cover the last couple items too on the agenda before that's too great so okay all right so our our next agenda item is uh some continuing yeah just a couple continued items I didn't know um Guilford if you had any updates um about this trying to do this um bicycle pedestrian networks map yeah it's just the back burner she she gave me a proposal and we just haven't got kind of finalized because you're on board so I did hear from her you know she is a grad student who's doing the dual program with regional planning and landscape architecture I think no I guess sorry geography and planning or something she did just move to to Greenfield but she she sounded pretty busy she didn't know how much time she would have so um it would be great I think as you know with not just with Safer to school but some of these other things too like once we can have that map like an updated version of the map available so just when we're having conversations about like you know these are main you know pedestrian corridors and things like that to try to use those I guess as as it sounds like the town is going to be looking for money and looking for priorities and things like that so I mean so um and then are there any updates about palm tree village went out to bed okay whoo yay and so how long is like usually the bed usually open and then how long does it take to we'll probably get beds back the end of the month okay hopefully get started except for um bringing into lots of material issues and other projects okay it doesn't seem like the construction of the project is going to happen in um in like this year like this calendar year or I don't know okay I didn't know well we should be able to start but oh right we're not going to wrap up what when do you usually like with winter and stuff when do you is there like a timeframe when you usually stop infrastructure projects or do you just keep going until sorry we normally stop all road work around Thanksgiving oh oh that late wow yeah once once I mean it kind of depends on whether the farmer's almanac is correct or Noah's right um if the farmer's almanac is correct it's going to be really cold this year so it may be stop sooner if Noah's right then we may go they may go longer I mean they were some of the asphalt plants were open into um January last year what oh my god well it doesn't it seem like the last few winners is that like sometimes December's pretty mild and then it's only in like we don't actually get I don't know we don't get a lot of snow actually until like January February that's yeah it seems that lately but but I'm not out trying to build infrastructure when it's getting cold so okay and um and then somebody which is asking me too just about like Kendrick park and I know the council had approved to just see some of those interim changes like change the parking signs to the other side of the street and things like that yeah we have like four more weeks right for us students get here right yeah the students school starts after Labor Day yeah on the fifth three four weeks nobody's parking there now I mean the the main people I see parking there are actually families that are going to the park right and then because there's no parking on the park side they're parking across the street and then letting their kids out and the kids are going across the street which currently it's quiet but that won't be the case come Labor Day or whatever so I did see a nice I think there was a light and maybe a crosswalk between um the park that where the sidewalk comes out and the Mexican restaurant am I right about that I call the Garcia's car yes yeah that was cool oh is that in now there's a big light there too going in but now there's currently a crosswalk like closer to like the valley bike station right on the Kendrick are they going to have are both are both crosswalks going to stay there or is there only going to be the one because they're they're pretty close together no there's going to be there's four crosswalks now to get to Kendrick Park there's one a pretty a triangle street there's one at Garcia's there's one at pretty street and there's one at well basically how like where how like comes in okay that's a lot okay that's good yeah we'll see and I did notice that one of the houses on that section north pleasant street they just feel like a huge they filled up some of their parking lot in the back of the building oh that one I think did actually oh two of them did yes no yeah that will put a little more demand I think for their people to park on street and not in the back yeah okay thanks um so that looks like all of those items are been updated and our next is um the next tax meeting tech tech meeting and other agenda items for that yeah so um right so it doesn't seem like we have anything to do on the 18th um is the TSO meeting on the 18th and Kim if that works out for you to go that would be great I should be able to do that yep and we get awesome just to put it up like on front on the agenda and get it over with um and then in September so we typically meet on the first and the third Thursdays which it sounds like that's been working for people and we can keep it at 5 30 yep people like that later time um the question is whether do we want to meet on September 1st or do we want to wait until after labor day two wait so okay I can't imagine there'll be other pressing we're gonna be able to stay hybrid through do you remember I don't remember what the led to it's pretty long now go for it isn't it like March oh great March next year yeah okay so tentatively do we want to say that we think we might want to do maybe a meeting on the 8th and then we could do a short meeting on the 15th or something that sounds good to me um the TSO is planning so they are TSO is planning to meet on September 15th to have the public hearing then and then to also have on the 22nd to have a follow-up meeting if they had anything left over from the public hearing that they wanted to cover then I know that the TSO they weren't going to meet after that until like mid-October or something but um so why don't we can plan on just a regular meeting on the 8th you know we'll see what we have to cover maybe it would just be a short meeting then we can also have a short meeting on the 15th okay if needed so that sounds good okay great does anybody else have any updates or anything or can we move to a turn yes we can Bruce excellent thank you all right take care everyone all right enjoy your audience all right thank you bye bye bye