 Yeah, I'm going to message Chate too. OK, I will, since we have a quorum, I'll get started with the magic words, which are pursuant to Governor Baker's March 12, 2020, order suspending certain provisions of the open meeting laws. This meeting of the TAC is being conducted by a remote participation. And so we are starting a little late tonight because of some technical issues, I guess. So three years into Zoom, and it's still not always fun. Do we want to get to the the minutes or do we want to get right to? Yeah, I guess just in case we want to keep the meeting short. I know Chris Lindstrom should be here soon. And Kate hopefully will be here soon, too. There's two in the waiting room. Because Eve was going to come too. So I say I'm honest here too. So we can let our dear counselor Anna Devlin got there and Eve. So because I am going to have to leave. Yeah, I need to leave at 6 30. My family has a birthday tonight and they would love it if I wasn't on meetings all night. It's not my birthday, but if it was my birthday, I'd stay. OK, thank you. Hi, Anna. Thank you for joining us. Sorry, we had to snafus. Guilford has saved us. So Guilford didn't read the email. You got to make sure you tell me to change. And we like we highlighted it. I like assume everybody's saying the same unless you're. Yeah, I get it. I mean, how many emails do you get? Huh? Yeah, a couple hundred a day. OK. All right, let's proceed. So we just had the call to order. So do we want the public comment? Yeah, and I guess because our fine counselor doesn't got here is here and that item is on our agenda. I mean, I guess I would ask, especially now, because we only have this half hour long meeting that we move ahead and we do that. We get to talk with her, speak to you about the street lights and then let her go. And if we want to talk further, because one thing, as I mentioned in the email is that Major Henneke is not available tonight because she's on other meetings tonight. And she was, you know, one of the sponsors of this as well. So I appreciate Ana being here to like, you know, give us a quick overview, but I don't want to, you know, take up honest time. And I think, too, I mean, one thing as a committee, I think it would be good. I mean, I know I have quite a few comments, but if we want to send some comments ourselves before before they come back and meet with us in March, I think that would be great. And that would give them, you know, some feedback in advance. And hopefully they can respond to our questions. So does that sound like a good plan to everybody? And then just because in case people do need to leave early. So so one of the reasons that Major Henneke couldn't be here is because she has CRC meetings, typically on Thursday nights as well. And so so one of the things is that we typically meet on the 1st and the 3rd Thursdays. And but that's also when she has the CRC meetings. And we also are trying to avoid the TSO meetings. There's a lot of meetings on Thursdays, as people probably realize. But so we could just commit to having our next meeting on March 9th, Thursday, March 9th, which would be the 2nd Thursday, then that would get rid of that conflict. And March is actually a month. I guess there's four, four Thursdays, no, five Thursdays. Right. The 2nd, the 9th, the 16th, the 23rd and the 30th, five Thursdays. So we could maybe meet on the 2nd and the 4th Thursdays, which would probably work better anyway, because the 3rd Thursday is during the college spring break. So if that sounds like a plan, I just I want to get people's OK. And then we'll just go ahead and move forward. Does that sound good? Yes. OK. And why don't we, I don't know, should we switch back to 530 because it seems like the five o'clock thing may be creating more issues than it's worth. And so, yeah, all right, let's switch back. So 530 on March 9th, March 9th, yes. And then the next day after that would be the 23rd. OK. Thank you. OK. Thank you. All right. Take it away. Meet me. Take it away. Yes. Yes. Go ahead. Thank you. Hi, everybody. Thanks for having me. I want to start off by just saying this is one of two times that will be coming while Mandy will be here next time. And so the goal of today is really to hear your questions. I may not have, I most likely will not be responding to most of them, but really just to walk through the the proposal. I think there might be some some confusion to about the two pieces. And so I want to clarify that and and hear questions so that we might be able to find some answers before before March 9th. So this this proposal began with Mandy, who had heard a lot from some of her constituents. She's an outlarge counselor, so everyone is is her constituent heard from some constituents about streetlights shining into windows and on to lawns in a way that was really disruptive to their well-being and isn't necessarily what streetlights are designed for. And Mandy began to look into it and learned about the risks that that streetlights can have and the impacts that they can have on human health. In addition, she learned about the impacts they can have on our our natural environment, animals, plants, et cetera, et cetera. So if you want to go way back and read our original sponsor memo, that might be helpful. And I apologize, I should have sent it to include in the packet because this was a while ago now. But the sponsor memo and the initial presentation includes some imagery and some rationale behind some of what we are pitching today. What you're seeing and what was in your packet is a two part proposal. Initially, we had sent this all together as one piece. And in our discussions with TSO, we decided to split it into two. So there's really part one, which is more the technical elements of lighting. And then there's part two, which is redoing the lighting zones across town. So to be clear, if you're scrolling down, let's see, Part B is not what's being proposed today. So we are just focusing on the first part. Yeah, Tracy. Oh, you're muted. Sorry, perhaps you want to share your screen with us? Sure. One second. Let me just affect if that's not too much information for people. As you're as you're talking about scrolling through, you could show us the scrolling. Sure. I had figured everybody had the packet up. Yeah, no problem. There actually isn't a packet. Oh, how do you get your meeting materials? We usually email them. Oh, I'm not allowed to share my screen. Oh, yeah, I can. Here it is. OK, first should let you. Yeah, I got it. Guilford, you just let me do anything, right? It's actually set up that way. See, that's the true answer. All right. So here we go. Everybody seeing it? OK, so this is the this is the part that we're talking about. It outlines the purpose of this, the definitions. I'm going to try not to make anybody motion sick going through lots of definitions. This is pretty technical stuff here. And so it's important to try to be really clear with folks about what we're talking about, what we're talking about. It's late and it's Thursday. So and then we get into the second part, which starts here, starts on page seven. Again, this is not what we're talking about today. So if you have questions on this, I encourage you to save them. We will probably be bringing this back at a later date, but it's it's not going to be helpful to kind of intertwine them right now. So Tracy, I'm not sure what would be more helpful for you is to go through line by line or just to have general comments first? Sure. OK, so so I will admit that unfortunately, I did not distribute this to the members very far in advance. So I'm not even sure how much people have had a chance to look at it. I mean, do we want like a show of hands? How much people have looked at it? Sure, so everybody can see much. OK, Marcus has looked at it anyway. So I mean, I can I have looked at it extensively. I had looked at the first version that came out in August extensively. And I sent the council my comments then. I mean, this just got referred to TAC for the first time from the TSO, the town services and outreach committee, because one of the counselors said, well, you should get tax input. I mean, one of the members of TSO who are all counselors, one of them said that you should get tax input. And then somebody else said you should also get the disability access advisory committee's input, but it's been floating around for six months. So I thought about it quite a bit. I can I mean, I I could send the like, you know, a lengthy email about like my comments. But I I'd be happy to kind of lead it off with some general ones, because that's not good to people. And then if I get too much in the weeds, please stop me and I will send those in an email. So I mean, I'll just say in general. So this has been this has been presented. It was presented to the council in August and then it was presented to TSO in November and then it came back to TSO last week. And in between the November time and the last week is when that second section about the locations of street lights, that whole second part got you know, put on the back burner for now. I mean, I would feel more comfortable of some of the language in that section at the heading of that section doesn't just say like for future discussion. Maybe it could just say it's like on hold for now or something because it makes it sound like it's still sort of living right now. And it will be because I do. I mean, those were my more and those a lot of my main concerns were about that section. And I just say I'm from listening to the TSO discussion last week. So one of the things that's come up is so I know. So I mean, this proposal was put together by the two councillors and they also consulted extensively with James Lowenthal, who used to be an Amish resident. He's a big cyclist and he is also an astronomy professor at Smith College. He now lives in Northampton and he is a very active in the dark skies movement and reducing light pollution in general. And he has consulted other communities about dark skies and to promote dark skies. And so when I hear the TSO meeting like the discussions and Mr. Lowenthal was a panelist at last week's TSO meeting. But a lot of the comments, you know, by the proponents are talking about that this is all being done to promote human health. And from the very beginning, one of my concerns has been it really seemed like the proposal was not really looking at the adverse health impacts of darkness on traffic safety, on pedestrian safety, on bicyclists safety, on the safety of other vulnerable populations. I think in the initial slide presentation that was made to the council and the first TSO meeting, you know, it's just it's very minimally discussed. And those are really real risks about only about a third of. I believe it's like a third of. A vehicle miles traveled or at night, but over half of the traffic fatalities are at night. Seventy five percent of pedestrian fatalities are after dark. Also, the pedestrian fatalities and bicycle fatalities are predominantly among, well, not predominantly, but disproportionately among minority populations in low income neighborhoods in areas without, you know, different infrastructure, including good lighting. I mean, the last few days, I've been listening to a federal highway traffic safety forum that's been conducted online. And in their section about nighttime visibility and safety, they say that nighttime visibility is a huge issue. You know, they had sessions on lighting, lighting visibility at intersections, lighting, visibility across walks and the little clips they show. I mean, there's a number. I mean, there are a number of like one to two minute videos, and they all start with the reality that over seventy five percent of pedestrian deaths happen at night and that the, you know, these disadvantaged populations are disproportionately impacted and the pedestrian deaths and pedestrian deaths at night have been on the rise. So I'm coming at it from that perspective. I mean, I do really much appreciate, you know, wanting to decrease light pollution. But I'm also thinking about all the lives are being lost by inadequate lighting at night. And it really is an issue and it's an issue both in terms of I mean, there's a safety issue for like older drivers, for example, for like latest vehicle technologies. So part of my background is that I, you know, do driver research. I used to be the driving the lab manager at a driving simulator lab about what drivers see, you know, how drivers respond, what they don't see. And there's a lot of evidence about that older drivers don't see as well at night. I don't see as well at night. I'm not even that old. And and the pedestrians and bicyclists really overestimate how visible they are and drivers overestimate how well they can see pedestrians and bicyclists. So I'm kind of coming at it from that perspective. But I can. Casey, do you have any specific areas you want to focus on? I know we have like until 6 30. So I kind of want to keep this. So I guess. Yeah, so one of the things that I was still concerned about, even if we removed that second section was the section G three in the new proposal. So and this is carryover language from the current street lights policy, the current street lights policy was approved in 2001. So it's been over 20, it's over 20 years old. And so on section three, you know, G three, it says about that street lights will not be provided by the town as security lighting for private property. I agree with that 100 percent. And then also saying that street lights will not be provided for pedestrians in residential neighborhoods, unless one of the above criteria is met or the town council otherwise seems the situation to require a street light. And so that's a little bit that's concerning to me because I would rather this policy like stay silent on the issues of pedestrians in residential neighborhoods. I do think. I mean, there there are a lot of there are a lot of residential neighborhoods that don't have a lot of night lighting and. Well, I would say that it's not clear what the above criteria are. That that is a factor as well. I mean, that's to me is more the focus rate is what the criteria are we talking about? Are we talking about something in F or in a or, you know, what? So maybe we can get there. Yeah, I can. So it would be in one through three, one through two. So I guess really one. So it's basically if there is an intersection where there is not currently a light or if, you know, it's a mid block location. So it's essentially saying that if if it's not up to the standard level that is set in G1, that that's where they could be added. Tracy, to to confirm what you're saying, your preference would be. Are you saying that you would prefer that anybody who requests the street light is able to get one where they would? No, I'm not suggesting that I'm just I don't like the language of saying that we will not provide lighting for pedestrian safety. I would rather that not be part of the bylaw. Well, I think that our kind of expectations and our goals as a community have changed in the last 20 years. And I'd like us to be more supportive of pedestrians, including pedestrians at night. Yeah, I do hear that. And I guess I'm concerned or I'm confused at how G1D doesn't cover that, which is pedestrian traffic, heavy pedestrian traffic. I mean, but the reality to me is that I'll let other people speak to. I mean, the reality to me is that like people are walking in all neighborhoods. Right. First of all, you have this heavy pedestrian traffic. I'm not sure what that term heavy means. It's very subjective and some of it also varies, you know, by time of year. I mean, you have certain student neighborhoods that don't have a lot at other times during the summer and so on, but also just, you know, in any kind of I mean, there's so many residential neighborhoods where people are walking their dogs or people are, you know, don't. I mean, I mean, a lot of student neighborhoods, people don't have cars and people are so I guess I'd rather just it's not just heavy pedestrian traffic, it's just like why I guess I'd rather it's just for me and silent. We don't have to have lights everywhere. But just like, why are we saying we will not? Why are we saying that lights, three lights will not be provided in pedestrian neighborhoods like that's of what concerns me. OK, so so help me work through this year. So if we don't say it, then the assumption in the requirement would be that we do provide them upon request. And that was something that and I guess I'll defer to Guilford a bit here is something that the town was not interested in doing because of the disparity and honestly and who knows how to engage enough to get one and because of just the kind of control issue of kind of how many lights that we're putting out there. And so if we don't specify that we're not going to do it, it's fair to say that we would do it. So I'm trying to figure out what the ideal medium would be. But it doesn't it doesn't it just says that, you know, where are the intersection G, where it says one street light shall be located at all road intersections and the street lights at mid-lock locations will be space and interval appropriate is determined by the DPW and at locations deemed hazardous. I mean, a lot of these residential neighborhoods, you know, if you look at Lake Orchard Valley, I mean, a lot of them mainly just have street lights, I believe, at the intersections currently. And also, the way I read the current version of bylaw is it's not because you remove that second section, it's not saying that street lights will all be removed. What it's doing is it's just saying when, you know, this is talking about new placement of street lights. So if if there wasn't if the language wasn't there that said we will not provide street lights in pedestrian for pedestrians in residential neighborhoods, I don't see that that's a problem because I'm not seen anywhere where it's saying we're going to have street lights all over the place. OK, I know you are concerned about G3. Doesn't like that pedestrian safety isn't a reason to get a street light. Wants us to take out the language that says the town will not provide. That that's that's my take on it. But I don't I like to hear what other people say on the top. Stefan has had his hand up for a while. Thanks. So I just have some clarified questions that I said we're not focusing on sorry, I'm scrolling through as I speak. Sponsor Part B. So just a quick question. I know we're going to focus on it, but you mentioned some codes here that just threw me off like LZ LZ zero L or sorry. Yeah, LZ zero LZ one LZ two. Are these these? Sorry. Wait one second. The following zoning district shall be an LZ zero RORL. Like, do you have a map of all these zones in the town? Because I see earlier it says the town shall maintain under I one bottom of page five, the town shall maintain official map location of town street lights. Can we get I don't know if that's more of a DPW question or you have one, but can we also get that map of if you have one? So I'll I'll turn to Guilford for the current map of the street lights. The all of the LZs would be part of that section too. It's probably not going to be helpful for me to send that to you right now, because we're going to rework it into that. But it's like creating where in town things would be. There is one reference left in the first section that that ties back to it. And we've flagged that. We just haven't had a new version out to two committees yet. OK, I just want clarification. And then the other thing I was going to ask in for the top portion we're all discussing right now. So this this isn't a current policy. What we're seeing above is this a proposed one? And if so, what is the current one? Because obviously there's criteria here, like we're going to place a street light if criteria A, B, C, D are met or you know, whatever. Like under G, I think I mentioned, you know, so this is proposed, right? Is there a current one? And if so, can we see how that differs? It's page 10 in the. OK. Yeah, it's the last page. The last. Yeah. So that's the question that the G three that is basically a copy and paste from the previous from the current standard, right? Yes. I see it now. OK. Great. That's all I had. OK. It's short. It's much shorter. Yeah, it's a one pager. Yeah. I mean, yes. No, no, Eve Hatter has had her hand up for a while, too. Hi. So and I just want to say I'm not actually officially on the committee anymore. I was on the committee for about 10 years. So I've been involved in these discussions for a long, long time. And I currently have a column in the indie that I'm trying to do on transportation mode shift in Amherst and how we really need to be working on promoting people getting out of their individual private cars and onto bikes and walking and taking the bus. So in that context, in both contexts of being on the tack and its predecessor committees and really thinking about how do we get about a mode shift? I mean, honestly, I have advocated for exactly the opposite of what you were advocating for. I'm very sympathetic to the idea of night skies. I live next to a big, you mass field. I love seeing the stars, but and I'm no expert on street lighting. But my understanding is there are ways to do street lighting that provide visibility for bicyclists and pedestrians, but don't blare into the night the way, you know, traditional lights do. And in my opinion, that's what we need to be looking at. We need to be not saying no lights because it is dangerous. You know, there was a person killed on North Pleasant a few years ago, got out of the bus, wasn't seen. There is a person killed not that many years before that on East Street. Walking along two people side by side, wasn't seen hit by a car killed. There's a person killed on university at night, not seen. You know, we have multiple pedestrian deaths, not just statistics nationally, but here in Amherst, and we have, you know, five thousand new residents who come in every year who don't know to like wear bright clothing and we're not going to get them all to do it. And we want them to be biking. We want them to be walking. We want them to be taking transit and not bringing individual cars every single one of them. So we need to be like, I don't know if you've you've biked up. I'd bike up on East Pleasant, right? If you go at night up East Pleasant and you get to the point just past Eastman, there's this total dark spot where I can't even see the rope, you know, and literally like if there's a new pothole or there's gravel there, like I could easily die riding my bike. And I have like ridden, you know, driven many, many times when there's pedestrians walking because we don't have sidewalks on all of these streets, right? So even at night, they're walking in the road and and, you know, the undergraduates are not all going to be, you know, take the lane, you know, spandex wearing, you know, reflective gear wearing people at night. It really is fundamental street lights. Or I don't know if you've looked at the walk reports we did as a committee a few years ago, we walked and did the North Pleasant route. There's so many spots and there's so many students housing up and down that street where people are walking where we need more lights, not less. So, you know, I'm not on this committee, but I will be, you know, writing comments. But I really think the misguided approach to try to forbid lighting. I think the right approach is to say, how do we do both? How do we create a lighting system where we've got lighting that's going to be regular and low level, right? Maybe it's, you know, I don't know if motion determines. I don't know what the technology is, but we've got to find a way that we have a dark sky and safety lighting, not one exclusive of the other. Yeah, I'm sure. And then step on. Yeah, thank you. So I'm not clear on where the idea that this policy is banning lighting in town is coming from, because, Eve, to be honest with you, it's doing everything that you're saying. It is it's setting up our lights to have a certain number of pins so that when we do upgrade them, eventually they could be motion detectors. It's limiting the amount of spread. It's pointing them down. It's doing all of that. So I'm a little I'm a little perplexed by the idea that this is banning all streetlights. The the idea of the zones is where it would get to the point where we would be removing them from certain areas. But the the purpose of this first section and what it outlines is really about more much more about the fixtures and the way that our lighting functions. I also would like to be very clear that this is only for streetlights that are in the public way. We will not be addressing UMass at all. That is separate, so we can't do that. I am a cyclist. I am an avid cyclist. And so I do understand what you're saying. I also think that there's significant education that needs to happen around road safety, you know, in less. And if this is something that you want to pitch either as a resident or as tack of eliminating everything, then that's that's you're welcome to pitch that. But I think that there aren't a lot of places in this town where you can currently go for a long ride or a long walk at night without needing individual lighting. And I think it's really important that we're educating our residents on that safety element as well. So I think that I would really encourage folks as you're reading through this to separate the first part in the second. The council when we vote will be will be voting on just this first part. And if Bandy and I rework the second, that will be that will be go through the entire process again. So as you look through, we talk about the level of light, the warmth of light, the sky glow, the type of fixture and the pins, excuse me, the pins. And that that's the part that would let it be dimmable in the future if we did upgrade the the actual bulbs themselves. And then I also wanted to go back to something at the beginning, too, which is, you know, we we have done a lot of a lot of the research as well. Mandy and I I think are known for not not ignoring details. And so the other thing to really that's really important to note here is, you know, you gave the example of the person stepping off the bus. It's this this policy is very clear that bus stops are lit, right? And so there are some there are some things that are, you know, we're trying to mitigate to think with that safety mindset as much as possible. We also know that data wise, most of those accidents at night are drunk drivers. And so it's really important to recognize, Tracy, I see you, I see you. So a significant number. I'll say a significant number if that feels better, a significant number of the accidents are our folks under the influence and distracted drivers. And so it's really important to also recognize other ways that we can be promoting safety as well. Correlation does not equal causation and I will I will happily fight that fight. I'm not saying that there is an a link, but it cannot be the we cannot act as if it is the only link. So I just wanted to kind of check that a little bit here. So. That's the the main thing is that this first part of the policy is really not. It's not about removing lighting. It's about making our lighting efficient and safe in terms of the human health and the health of the environment. But I have written down your yours as much as your statement as I could capture and I will address it with Mandy as well. And Stefan. Thank you. Thanks. I was just also going to say with respect to, again, going back to page four section G, the location standards, I'd also just throw in the kind of treats you mentioned earlier. It said like I just lost the warning, but it said like, oh, like high pedestrian pedestrian traffic and that could be subjective. And I'd also just throw in there also like the types of pedestrians that might be living in or frequently traversing through there. So like, for example, what it comes to mind from the elderly population. Obviously, if you have one elderly person in the neighborhood of a thousand, like, you know, but what I'm saying is like the vast majority, if there's a great amount, like it also, and that's I'm sure it's more from an engineering standpoint, which I don't know anything about. You know, you say like or says in here, it's a mid block location that is basically deemed appropriate. I'd also be curious to see if that that includes like the different speed limits on streets, right? So if it's a street that's 25 miles an hour, a street that's 40, 45 miles an hour, do we need to be putting more street lights in the quicker speed? Is it sorry in the areas where the speed limit is greater? What about street width types of lanes? You know, I'm sure there is, again, a formula and I'm sure that is the consideration, but we're saying it with respect to the policy. I think that shall also be in there. And then bus stops, I think that's also important. I also actually work for UMass transit services. So I get to see this as a driver and as a dispatcher. And I get to hear people calling in it regarding buses missing them because they weren't seeing the bus stop. Obviously, we talk about a big bus stop like Town Hall, Colesley and Post Office. Those aren't really big factors because they're well lit there. And they're those are actually the one three inch from mandatory bus stops where every bus has stopped there. But but when you look at East Pleasant Street between Eastman Lane and Pine Street, that's a pretty lengthy stretch. There are a lot of students walking southbound on that road towards Tillson Farm in the that stop up there. And I see them because I drive to 33 a lot. So I go through the line and see them even at night driving and have your high beams on. And some of those are hard to see. Some stops do have a little LED light, which blinks. And that's provided by the PVTA. That's more so indicating through driver that there's someone waiting there, you know, it's a it's pushed a button, almost a crosswalk button, and it flashes for I don't quite know how long they ten minutes to indicate someone's waiting. But it's not made to actually show there's someone there. Like illuminate them. So I think just keeping that in mind and you know, where people going from there, if a lot of people live in a certain neighborhood behind the bus stop, taking that into consideration. I know you can't put a light at every person's house. I get that that they want to be realistic or financially feasible, but I just think that like looking at bus stops in general is is a safety issue is important to look at. And a lot of these just have the bike lane where people have to wait or in the very narrow grassy area, not a pull off. So the bus is stopping in the road or or hugging the bike lane where people are already waiting. So that can take in mind. But again, the types of population, what is the street being used for? And I guess the other more scientific aspects of, like I said, the speed, the width, all that. So that's just what we're putting for, especially for section G. Thank you. And just to comment, if I had my way about road widening and adding bike lanes and bus stops, our roads would look different. But Guilford might kill me. So thank you. It's he might anyway, to be fair. Next, Tracy, you had I deferred it. I want to hear what Marcus has to say since I've spoken before. Sorry, I was just going to point out one thing on I think Stefan actually mentioned some of this, you know, there's some words in here that are very hard to define. So a better definition of help, like, you know, what is heavy pedestrian foot traffic mean? You know, do you need to have a stampede or do you just have two people? The other one was G1. G1. A I kind of bulk at just limiting it to one street light per intersection. I'd like it to be a bit more open, like, you know, at least one street light would be cool, because not all, you know, not every intersection is made the same. And if you're trying to limit adverse lighting, you know, having more lights actually could be more helpful. So is there a size of intersection that you would recommend? Or you you said you would just want it to say at least I'd say at least. And then because if you get too into the weeds on this sort of thing, you're going to be hamstringing yourself for special situations. So yeah, thank you. You get too detailed on it. Are there any other things you said heavy pedestrian was one of the things that you want? Yeah, I think there's just a throughout, you know, there's just kind of use of heavy or just various different things. It's just like maybe be more cognizant on some of the descriptors in here. OK, if you find any other specific ones, please let us know. Yes, I will. Christine, am I next? Christine, I guess I am. OK. Yeah, I just was I like this a lot. And I think it's well thought through and I appreciate you also addressing some of Eve's concerns straight on in terms of, you know, from a pedestrian or a cyclist point of view, how this plays out. I just was also curious about maintenance. And I actually don't know how our current street lights are maintained and how much it costs to maintain them. I'm assuming that that's all kind of in Guilford's budget each year and things are maintained maybe on an ad hoc basis rather than like twice a year we go out and do X and Y with our street lights. And so I was just curious about the way maintenance occurs now. And if any of these changes impact the amount of maintenance that we need to do or, you know, the amount of money that needs to be spent on maintenance with some of these kind of sort of newer criteria along what around what street light is. The second part of this, if we bring it back, would impact that probably maybe a little bit more if we did remove street lights. I also I'm not sure I addressed Eve's concerns as well as as she may have wanted me to, but I appreciate that. I guess Guilford's probably going to have a better answer in terms of cost, but that is something that we've that TSO also asked for, and we'll be having more official reports on in terms of what the transition would cost. And Guilford, when you answer, if you could speak to this generally, but also that one street light on wildflower, that'd be great. So the one on wildflower they went and looked at and it wasn't doing it. OK, I will go again. So what we do right now is at least now I'm going to go to wildflower and look around. And you got all planting seeds here. And so, I mean, it's weird because there's multiple things that affect street lights. The older lights in Amherst Woods, Echo Hill and Orchard Valley and some of the developments are well, actually most of the developments in that same time period, there's wiring that is substandard and actually causes flickering as well as the LEDs are the photo cells. So once a year, at least once a year, we go out and do an inventory at night. So there's an inventory done at night to see which ones are on which ones are off. Based on that, they do maintenance on those. There is no we do not track when we replace a bulb or when we replace a fixture and then put in a new one. We just wait for it to have a problem because they go at different times. We can buy a box of photo cells, a brand new box of photo cells and replace photo cells with them and they'll be the first photo cells to go out again. American supply chain, the American supply chain is not very reliable for parts like that anymore, so there's not a scheduled replacement. It's as needed. They can get replaced. So once a year, we do a townwide survey and mark down those ones that need to be replaced and then we replace parts as they need to. And when people call in and the place to call and place the email is the public works office, it's not the assistant town manager's office. It's not the town manager's office. It's not the conservation or planning commission or whoever. It's you email public works and there's a good website says that. And then we can work on it because there's actually four. Actually, there's five people who own lights in the town of Amherst. There's the town, there's UMass, there's Amherst College, there's Mass Highway and there's private lights. And all of them can be in the public way at the same time. So College Street, the town only owns three lights down College Street between South Pleasant Street and the railroad bridge. But there's a light on every pole. The other ones belong to Amherst College. So as you talk about the public ways, those lights will be affected, but those are owned by well, they're owned by Eversource and they're rented by Amherst College North Pleasant Street to the campus public way. Almost every light down there is owned by the university. When you get to there's other places like that in town, they're kind of the same Lincoln Avenue, no Sunset Avenue, no Lincoln, sorry, Lincoln Avenue. There's a neighbor who owns a light on Lincoln Avenue because they didn't want it turned off in 1991. The streetlight policy at the bottom of their proposed streetlight policy, it says it was voted in 2001, but that's actually just a re-approval of the policy from 1991 when we actually turned off two thirds of the street lights in Amherst. So there's not, there wasn't a lot of real thought put in that policy, except that they were cutting the budget in 1991 and just turning off street lights. But that's how we do it. So it's I actually am about to send on some some questions about the maintenance section. But there is no map. We can put a map together. We have an inventory. Gilford, do you see this new policy as like negatively impacting the bottom line? Well, when we go to the smart lights, when you go to the smart lights, it's just like putting a cell phone in every streetlight. So one is your technology, the lights more expensive. Two, you have to have a subscription per light to actually talk to the light, just like each one of us have a subscription to talk on our cell phones. And how many lights are there in town approximately? There's a few hundred. And this is not we wouldn't be putting the smart bulbs in. What what this policy does is at this point is enables the fixtures. If we did decide in the future to use those smart lights down again down the road, because we know that they're so expensive. But this gives us the option to not have to change out all the fixtures. So so, Guilford, I had a question too. About the the utility poles, the lights with utility poles. I mean, sorry, the utility poles that have the lights, you know, particularly like whenever source was putting in those taller poles, like all over town, including I know on my street and lots of streets, but one of the things I noticed is that when they were switching from the one pole to the other pole, in fact, in a lot of places, there's still both poles. But when the street lights were being switched over, a lot of times the street light height was increasing. And so I mean, I did have the practical question with this proposed policy where it's talking about that all the street lights should be at a certain height. And I was I've been told that the town doesn't have total say over at what height the street lighting is on is located on the ever source poles. Like, could you speak to that a little bit? Because maybe I mean, if a lot of the street lights we have are on ever source poles, I'm not sure how much that's under the town's control. So around around 14, 13 to 14 feet is where wires start appearing on the pole. And that kind of corresponds to the actually corresponds to the height of the official highest vehicle that can go down a road. And that might be a little low on the number. So that's where the first wire is. And that's the Verizon wire or your telephone wire. And then every they try to space the wires out every foot. So on some poles, you may have Verizon. Then you'll have town of Amherst. Actually, you won't have time to ever show up at Verizon. You'll have five college fiber. And then there's another fiber company in town. And then there's the next you'll get the Comcast. So if you see like four wires that are basically look like their communication wires, that's what those are. Verizon sometimes has two wires or three wires on a pole. And they're all they're all hopefully spaced up a little part. And then you get to the municipal section of the pole. And in the municipal section of the pole, you can have a fiber line for the town. You may see the old fire box system still hanging on the poles, the old poles. You'll see the two wires for the fire alarm system. And then you'll see a street light and the street light is all in that municipal zone. And then you see the secondary power zone. And then you see the high voltage power zone going up. So street lights are powered from the secondary. So they have to be the area below the secondary. So they won't be any lower than where the secondaries are for Verizon or for ever source because we have to power off that. So basically, if the pole gets higher, so do our lights. Yes. Yeah. The only ones we can control can control are the the decorative lights we have around town or the individual poles we have around town, we can set the height of those poles. Yeah. So in like section, for example, in section E six of the proposed policy, it says that the maximum height of all the street light luminaries will be 25 feet from the roadway surface. Is that realistic? Like, given what you're telling me about that it starts at 14 to 15 feet with Verizon and then all the other things. We might be a little higher than that on some of the newer poles. They're putting in some fifties and sixties now. So it might be a little higher. OK. So and then I did have, I mean, I have some thanks for explaining that because it was really confusing to me about the poles. And so what percentage of the I mean, just approximately what percentage of the street lights in town are on the ever source poles compared to the town poles? It's probably 90 percent or on a well, you think that back is probably 80 percent or on ever source poles. All right. So, OK, so a few a few things I was looking for some clarifications on. And I think too, I mean, speaking more on what some people were saying about how it would be good to have more clear definitions. So one definition I had questions about it seems quite subjective is the definition of light pollution, which is definition number 10 and the definition section on page two. And so light pollution is defined as any adverse or abstruse, obtrusive effect of the use of outdoor lighting at night. Also any inappropriate or excessive use of artificial light. So I think that that that species seems pretty pretty subjective in terms of like I might think that more light is better or somebody might say like no light is better and so on. So if we are going to use that term light pollution, maybe we want to have a more objective definition of it. And then looking at I did have questions back to section E again. I had questions about the street and this is something I had brought up to the TSO earlier about the street lights, the streetscape lighting. Well, first of all, I had questions about where the streetscape lighting zones are considered to be because there is a new definition now about village centers. And speaking to what Stefan was talking about earlier, like it is talking about the municipal parking district and the village centers that you should have streetscape lighting. But there are other areas that also do have heavy pedestrian traffic. Like, for example, like the municipal parking districts, you know, it doesn't, for example, extend up North Pleasant Street through campus, which is where you was talking about that fatality. It's quite limited, doesn't extend along Triangle Street. I mean, so one thing you could look at is you could look at the the 2019 Amherst Bicycle and Pedestrian Network plan, because we did identify what were the priority pedestrian corridors and maybe include increased lighting there. And then there's also this section under, I guess it's G, no, no, no, under. Sorry, under E4B about the streetscape lighting shall be dimmed to no more than 70 percent of normal luminescence levels by 11 p.m. or after the closing time of the last bar live music venue. So one thing about that is I mean, there are some parts of town that are pretty quiet late at night. Or after 11 p.m., but there are other parts that are not. Some of the buses in Amherst, the PBTA buses, the UMass transit buses, they run until 1 a.m. And and near UMass, 11 p.m. is not like when everything was shutting down. In some cases, it's when everything is getting started. So I was kind of questioning that also because like some of those areas like the areas where a lot of UMass students live are outside of the Municipal Parking District or the Village Centers as they've been defined. So I think it might be preferable to use some of the major pedestrian corridors for part of that definition. And also I was curious about why 70 percent was chosen. And I think and then, yeah, that was I think the main part. And then again, so I just again had the questions just about like back to Section G, where we were talking. I do agree with what Marcus said about one streetlight. Shall we locate all the roadway intersections, particularly for some of the larger intersections? I think it could be more appropriate to have more. And again, it also depends on what type of lighting. For example, if you are in the streetscape area, I know it's, for example, at University Drive South and Route 9 that Barry Roberts, New Development has like low level street scaplighting. It's actually like a path. It's a path and it's like very well lit and it's great. Tracy, Tracy, hang on. I think are we we're going kind of a little over the place? Can we you had a bunch of questions? I hope we can get those answers. Oh, go ahead. I have some answers for you. Hey, that's helpful. And I'm I'm furiously typing. I apologize if folks are hearing that in the background. Oh, okay. They bike and pedestrian plan. That's one of the reasons why we are re looking at the second part of this is that, you know, it's something that we've both read, but we didn't like lay it over the initial zones. And so we will be doing that as we look at the initial zones. And I'm hearing you about the main corridors on this to talk about what the streetscape area specifically, it sounds like. The the 70 percent, I believe, is based on both best practices from different lighting groups or something like that. And also when we were benchmarking this and looking at other areas, what made sense in terms of still being able to see, but also still dimming. So that that's my that's my recollection of why 70 percent was chosen. But if I get a more clear answer, I will share that with you. The other things I don't necessarily have answers for right now, but I've written them down. All right. And Eve, did you have another question? Just a brief comment that the the network map was never updated after the pack had a series of meetings to mark it up. So that's never been completed, and that would be a good thing to finish up. Were there significant changes that might that should impact this in your mind? I think so. I mean, one of the things that we thought about a lot is like which bike routes are only for the strong able larger bicyclists and which are going to be for kids and inexperienced bicyclists and the latter would really require much more lighting than the former. And there were a few where we were like the draft had things going through neighborhoods where later we were like, no, that would only be a pedestrian route. So there were several instances where I think it would matter. Sorry, I think I froze for a second. Eve, I got the unstable warning. You had said the former and then it broke up. I'm so sorry. Could you repeat yourself, please? So so the two different kinds of bicyclists we were looking at. I got that part. The second is that there were some places where so the initial map was just based on like a public meeting that we had where people drew on maps, a few routes that like went through neighborhoods that later on people were like, no, that doesn't make any sense. So there are actually some like geographical changes where routes either got added or taken off between that map. And so the what's called the final bicycle and pedestrian plan does not actually have the final map. I think if I'm not mistaken, the community input information is online, right? Because I remember looking at that. Yes. So the community input information is what informed the map that's in there. Not the new one that's not out yet. But that's what happened with them. Then the TAC had a series of meetings to mark up that map and say, this is what should it really be? And that those markups never got onto a GIS map and into a PDF. Gotcha. And that's on our agenda, too. So we could transition over there because I know we're trying to end this meeting in 10 minutes. So this was a lot of really helpful stuff. Mandy and I are happy to hear any other questions. And then if the sooner you get them to us, the better so that we can come with more answers for March 9th. But I appreciate you all taking a look at this. We appreciate you coming and answering questions. Did you have something else? Yeah, I just had a question. So I didn't get a chance to read the proposed policy, but it sounds like you're being really prescriptive and and I'm just curious about your approach, why take that approach of being more prescriptive rather than like setting out a set of kind of, you know, this is the level of lighting kind of standard that we want because, of course, technology changes over time, right? And what you prescribe now, if the last policy was a 91, so that's been how long over 30 years, 30 years from now, there might be very, very different technology. So what's the point in being so prescriptive in a policy? Sure. So if you look at our other policies, you want to look at the water and sewer regulations and things like that, they tend to be much more prescriptive. They tend to be more scientific. They tend to really clearly specify because if they don't do it there, there isn't any other place that they would be necessarily that specific. Bylaws tend to be more general. But when you get into regulation and policy, it really does, you know, typically our regulations on things specify as clearly as possible, the standards that we expect to be upheld and they can be revisited. And that was something that was brought up as well of including a cadence for how often we would be revisiting this. But that's that's kind of the explanation is because it's a policy, not a bylaw. So those tend to be more prescriptive and specific. Also, because there's a lot of subjectivity in being less specific and if there's goals that we're trying to meet in things we really want to see, we feel that being. Yeah, I guess I would think, you know, I work on state policy, not on local. So I don't know, you know, but I think of the legislature as passing more of the standards and then the agency. So the staff being more in the regulatory details. But in this case, it seems like you could have an outcome based set of standards rather than a technology based set of standards. So the the counselor, the council is the keeper of the public way. And so we're doing it in that capacity. We we're that's part of the council responsibility as keepers of the public way is to do things about the public way. So that's that's why I mean, I think that, you know, I guess maybe we just disagree on the outcomes versus specificity part. And maybe Mandy has a different answer. I think that what we've found is we we've found that being specific is more helpful to folks in terms of actually giving guidance versus sort of vague ideas, but I'm also happy to hear disagreement on that too. And that's yeah. I mean, so I when I attended part of the last TSO meeting, right, there were comments from some of the counselors was talking about like, why is this so detailed and shouldn't we just allow like DPW to do its job and not I mean, I do I mean, I can understand wanting to have more specificity than the one page current policy. But I mean, I but it does seem to that I mean, just as you were saying, like the current policy is over 20 years old. And so like how often like how detailed should the policy be? I mean, how much should be left to DPW's discretion and how often if it's a very detailed policy, how much how often would it need to get updated? And I also just have a related just question about policies in general. And part of it was in light of the GOL's recent discussion about the snow and ice bylaw and also and it's just in terms of like, where are all these policies that the town has? Like, is there I was actually looking on the town website about are the policies like under different departments? Are they all under the town council? I thought of it because GOL was just discussing, as I said, the snow and ice bylaw and I've always heard, for example, that, you know, adjacent property owners are required to cut back their bushes and stuff, like stay out of the public way. But that's not actually in the bylaws. And I couldn't actually find that as a written policy anywhere. So I mean, like a resident who doesn't come to all these meetings, like, where would they even find all the policies? It's sort of an outreach information question. So I don't expect you to have the answer. Just more of a general question about where do they all live in? Yeah, I mean, I where do people see those and that's how I find them. So I just know all the bylaws live in a single spot. Guilford, do you hold your your current and existing policy? Or is that is I'm trying to find. So there is a website that is town policies that have been adopted by the council. I was just trying to pull it up, but my internet is being uncooperative. They're trying to they're trying to bring it all back together. They got dispersed, but they're trying to bring it all back together. And actually, there's been changes to bylaws that we don't even know about. You were talking about the not blocking the sidewalk and not letting your plant, your growth, your plants encroach on the sidewalk that it was in a bylaw. When I first got here, I was in the bylaws and it's not in there now. Someone took it out and there's no history of who to get out. So they're trying to organize the stuff a little better. Athena is doing a really good job trying to organize it. But right now, it's basically Athena doing it. So that's how it's going. But even like the current street slot lights policy, right? Like so, as Anna said, like, if I Google it, I can find the current street lights policy, but if I was said, hey, what are the DPW policies? Like, I don't know where they are. Anyway, you have to wander through to find them. OK, that was a valid question, Tracy. So, all right. Thank you. Thank you. And we're going to end in a couple of minutes. So thank you so much for coming tonight. That's very helpful. I think you all have my email. So feel free to email Mandy and I with anything else that comes up. Appreciate it. All right. Thanks. Bye bye. OK. So we did want to end the meeting pretty soon. Are there any other? I would be happy to talk for a few minutes about the Bicycle and Pedestrian Plan and see if we can get that moving in. But is there anything else that anybody wanted to discuss before we adjourn? Seems like not. So we just to confirm that our next meetings are March 9th at 5.30 and March 23rd at 5.30. Just confirming that before we move. Yes, that sounds like you should have a process. It sounds like they want feedback from the TAC that might be official before March 9th. You guys might want to have a process where you draft some comments, Tracy, and send them out to the committee and people write back to you before you send out official comments from the TAC. I'm just I'm just trying to think that you should you should plan some kind of process because you're not going to be able to meet again before. Good point. Yep. Anna, did you want to add something? I mean, Anna, would that be helpful to you? I don't know that we need your official. I mean, you asked a lot of really good questions that you probably want answers on from us first. And so there are so many other committees in town staff that we have to speak to. I think you're you're fine. I can confirm this with Mandy tonight. But I think if you want to wait for us to get you answers on March 9th and then have a response from TAC at that point, that would be appropriate. And just to confirm, you said the ninth, right? That's well, right. So that was when Mandy was available because the other Thursday, she is CRC. So I know I thought you had said the second and I just wanted to make sure that it was well, right. I had said the second, but she says yes, CRC because she is CRC the same night. So we have TAC, so we are TAC meeting for the to the ninth. OK, thank you. Thank you. But I agree with what Eve said at the ninth, once you have all our answers, a process would be really, really helpful to have some sort of formal response. And it would be helpful to know then from TSO. I know we had included when I reached out to you and Mandy that I'd asked. I'd see Seed and Nika Lopes as well, just as the TSO chair, just to get feedback from her about when when TSO would want tax feedback. I think given how many folks that you all are the first folks on that laundry list that we have met with, and so I think we're not totally sure when we're going to be done with that yet. So I'm not sure Nika has an answer for you at this point, but I will check back in with her. Thank you. Thanks. Thank you. So with regards to the bike and pedestrian networks map that we had marked up, I mean, it is coming up more and more, right? It's coming up as part of this discussion. It's been coming up at the planning board meetings. A couple planning board members had reached out to me and said, what's the status of the bicycle and networks map? I know that in North Amherst, like Donuts reached out to about it. So if there's a way, I mean, Guilford, if you have suggestions about how to bring it to fruition, at least get those edits that we had made, like into the GIS, that would be hugely helpful. And I know you're really busy. I know DPW is really busy, but well, lost my mouse. It's just a matter of getting it into the schedule. It's just there's a lot going on and it's just a lot going on. So it's just a matter of getting it into the schedule. Maybe we can get somebody this summer and see how it goes. Yeah, it has been a few years now. It has. But then we've been we've been talking about I've been talking about two things. The whole time the tack has been in existence. One, how does a tack relate to everybody and how do they want things? And we just get stuff thrown at us and there's no rhyme reason or whatever how this works. And two is there needs to be more staff that can actually do things with the tack or get things ready for people who have questions about stuff and it's been ignored. It's been ignored the whole time. And yes, it's just frustrating. It's frustrating for me as much as it is for you. Well, and we've talked about it a previous meeting about the whole idea of becoming a commission, which I think could help. But the commission would need staffing. I mean, so that would be. Yes, but it would at least give us something official like that. We're official. Yeah, I think there's a story in the paper today about someone going to cutting their budgets. Bill, I mean, what's I mean, the summer sounds really late, especially since, you know, this kind of policy is going forward right now. You know, we've talked about trying to get someone, you know, like I haven't done as a student GIS project, I know you haven't wanted to have a student come into your staff, but the data is all there. It doesn't sound like it's that technically difficult or if it would even take all that long for a skilled GIS person, what about just offering it up as a class project or a volunteer project? We have some internal issues with our GIS right now that I don't think the GIS coordinator would want. I don't know if he would want to allow other people and we've been talking about it and it's it's just there's just some issues and we haven't worked through them yet and so we worked through them. We probably aren't going to get anywhere. I can't even get I cannot get the twenty twenty two or twenty twenty one aerial photos on the GIS for the public to see when you go on the public browser, you're looking from photos from twenty two thousand nine. We just have some issues. So are you saying like you can't get the like you wouldn't be able to get the data out to get to someone else to work on in a different system and then get back to you or something like that? I'm not I'm not sure we have the ability to give it to somebody to do it and then get it back in and proof it to match back up the way it's kind of set up in our system. Christine. Yeah, I mean, I just wonder it seems like we should be trying to get the town council what they need so if we can even is it possible to give them? A, you know. Crappy alternative. But, you know, like what the final map was with just the notes, can we write out the changes that we wanted to make to the final map? And so that that, you know. Anna and Mandy and whoever else would be at least getting the information, even if it doesn't all look perfect on the map. We can we can actually sit down and talk to them about what the changes were. But one of the issues I think they're going to have is if you look at how they set up lighting zones, it's not based on it's not based on. Well, it's based totally on zoning. So it's I'm not really sure why I know why they chose it, I guess. I'm not really sure that's the best route to use in a situation like you're saying, in contrast to the map that the tack made several years ago, which is based on based on desire lines and travel routes, right? You can you can pass through several zoning distance. So what I would want is for us to be able to just give to them what we, obviously, I wasn't there, but what this committee did several years ago. And if we can't give it to them in map form, I don't know, Eve, like would Amber be able to go back and get us all the meeting notes and we can get we do have so because I have looked at like, I know which meetings we talked about it at. I did look in the minutes and but the minutes don't have the detail. Like so we we probably don't feel for had had recorded or we also like go back to the recordings like we have the meeting. Just get back to the recordings really. OK, because you don't you don't have those notes. Guilford still sounds like somewhere I do, but I keep I keep finding pieces of mobile. All right. OK. Anyway, so I have the annotations on a PDF, but only for North Amherst. After that, it's just zoom meetings. Right. Well, we'll see what we can do on our end. But yeah. I mean, it would be nice to have some. And then I don't know if that type of feedback got back to them. That we might want to be synergizing the desire lines and the way people flow around, you know, in contrast to the zoning approach that they're taking. But I think since that section of it is on hold for now, right, it's like part of the future discussions. I guess I'd rather focus on the part that's there now and that it sounds like TSO and the counselors may still have like a number of questions about that part. And because I have like major concerns about the basing it on zoning as well, including the fact that like a lot of low like, for example, you know, with that you can override some of the zoning. You know, when you build like low income housing and so on like that. So zoning alone is not reflecting like where people are walking the most in my opinion. So but I guess we'll have to hold that for another time. So and where people walk now is not necessarily where we want to be promoting more walking in the future. I mean, and the good thing about our map is our map was really looking like village to village and, you know, origin to destination and like what are the main corridors? So I would hope that those could continue to be have good lighting. So. All right, well, thank you. Do you find any of your notes? Could you Xerox them and give copies to Tracy? I can. I have some of them. OK, that's helpful. I mean, I think we're just going to we're going to work on recreating it. So. So engineers are very close to being like doctors. You mean you can't read it? Is that what you're telling us? You have to really be them to understand that. If we do are that all the zoom meetings are because because because there were, you know, what the way that we did that made those those changes was we actually went segment by segment on a map that we zoomed in. And so actually, I mean, we could easily recreate by going back to those meetings and recreating that on a, you know, now I can do all this very easily on my iPad and and write over those things. I mean, that would be trivial if we have the recordings. And we have that we have the recordings. It was just a few meetings, right? Yeah, Kim, I went through it. I think it's four or five meetings and I wrote down all the dates based on the minutes and the minutes don't include all those details of the discussion, but they do note that like a discussion took place. So we just need to go back to those and they are all available. Yeah, it ends up being a few nights of going through and recreating. And that is something we could certainly deliver to Anna, you know, for for their use, because I think it would be it would be valuable for them and planning board and like other people who are asking us for that information. So that's a good strategy. So I'll go back in my notes and find what which meetings were. And maybe maybe I mean, and the links, they're all on the town's YouTube page, so we can work on that. But OK, OK, I love to wrap this up. Does anybody want to adjourn and Myra? I'm sorry, before we leave, Myra, you've been here the whole time. Do you have any comment? Question, I have not been here the whole time. OK, I went to what was supposed to be a ZBA meeting about to which I was invited as a butter, but they didn't deal with that topic. Let us know that. So I came back and what I didn't hear was what questions you had for Anna about part one of their proposal. Right. So we only talked about part one. But OK, I can talk to you. OK, that sounds good. Thank we had a lot of questions and Anna graciously heard our questions. Part B is the part that I think is in many ways more important for pedestrians, cyclists, you know, drivers, because it's it's critical that people who are out in the dark can see where they're going. Yes. And where other people can see that where they're going. So. Yes, we do. We do not disagree. Yeah, no, I know we don't. So, OK, part one I will talk to you about. Sounds good. Thank you. Motion to adjourn. All right. Second. Yes. OK. Good night, everyone. All right. Thank you, everybody. Thank you all for 9th at 5.30. Bye. Thank you, Anna. Bye bye.