 Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the December meeting of the Public Works Commission. It's Brennan Hogan Chair calling this to order at 6.32. The first item on the agenda is the agenda itself. Any comments or discussion or changes, proposed changes to the agenda? I'd like to make a motion to approve the draft minutes of the consent agenda for some edits and to take off the lakeside issue for a couple of comments. I second that. Both of those. Okay. You have a motion to pull both consent agenda items and that motion has been seconded. Any discussion around that motion? All right, so let's vote on that all in favor if you say aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right, our modified agenda has passed. Next we'll go to public forum. I would welcome any comments at public forum now and also note that we'll allow time for public comments related to specific agenda items later in the meeting as well. So if there are any comments now, particularly on general interest items or if you're unable to stay till later. Welcome to now. With hand raised. All right. So Liz hurry will promote you over to speak. Hi everybody. Sorry. I'm not wearing my mask in your picture. So I just wanted to speak up tonight. I know you all heard from me and email about the North Champ Lane bike lane and I got a very nice and affirmative email back from Brendan. So I really appreciate that. Thank you so much. In the email he described a proposed loading area for Vermont paint, which I think is a great solution and wasn't aware that was in the plan and then I just wanted to share that after kind of following the north when you ski next use commercial corridor infrastructure proposal. I wanted to share with you that I like the North Champ Lane plan. And I think it's a good plan for a very dense multi family neighborhood where the parking can remain because when you remove parking, it's a burden for tenants on the north end. So I really appreciate that that will be that will remain on those sides. And I think it's a good idea to move it to one lane because it is a dense neighborhood with a lot of families in the school and to have the bike lane there alongside is a great solution. So I just wanted to share that, you know, not everybody who complains about bike lanes as opposed to them in terms of like the design ideas and, you know, it's like we have to live in the old north end and live with these changes. I don't know if any of you live in the old north end, but when you see regular working people's lives disruptive in a way that makes it more difficult, which I think will happen on Northwood is the avenue. That's when I get upset. It's not, it's not about me. It's just about knowing that our city is becoming less and less affordable and easy for low income working tenants to live here. And so when you create a situation where, you know, they have just slept to their jobs with their car and then they have to use some remote parking lot that they don't even know what that plan is going to look like. For a bike lane that they will never use. I just think it's not a great way of solving our community problems related to the climate crisis. So I I think that the North from New York ski, I mean, North Champlain plan is sensitive to low income tenants who need parking on the street because we have a lot of old buildings and it's not the landlord's fault that their buildings were built right up to the lot lines. So that's the kind of design I think is really friendly to the neighborhood. And I just want to tell you, I appreciate that. And I really appreciate Brendan replying to me. Thank you. And I'm speaking out because I can't stay for the meeting. So thank you. Thank you. Right. Anyone else? Mr. Golding? That's it. That has raised their hands up. Okay. Are you in the room? So is this specific to the part the bike corridor in Champlain or do we wait for that to come up on the agenda? If you're unable to stay for that, you're welcome to speak on it now. If you want to hang out for that. Thank you. All right. No problem. Just just. Okay, well, if you are able to stay for that item, are you able to stay until the conversation about that specific item? I think it'd be of interest to you. Yeah. Anyone else going once going twice for public comments? All right. I will close the public comment at this time and move forward to let's see. There's no more consent agenda. We'll go to, in that case, item 4.1, approval of draft minutes from the November meeting. There was a couple of proposed changes and just wanted to get a chance to make sure those were in front of us before considering those. I think these are light editorial rather than substantive edits. Is that the nature of this? Yeah. Paulie and Val were nice enough to have a copy for everybody printed out in front of you and we have it up on the screen just in case you all wanted to. Reasonable. By my read, welcome a motion. Oh, okay. I make a motion to accept the amended edited whatever draft minutes. All right. This is a motion. There's a second on the motion. Second. Okay. And there is a second. Is there any discussion around the motion? All right. Let's go to a vote then. All in favor of approving the item 4.1, there are amended draft minutes from November. Please say aye. Opposed? No. Any stains? All right. The November minutes have passed. Thank you. Moving forward item 4.2 regarding a parking removal request on Lakeside Avenue. This is one that was warned with no particular action needed at this time as an informational item but worth a little discussion if you wanted to offer some brief explanation of the reasoning from your end. Go for it. Sure. Phillip Peterson with DPW. So I submitted a memo that basically states DPW staff do not recommend any changes on Lakeside Avenue at this time. Ironically, as I pointed out in the memo, we were there in July looking at the parking and site line issues related to pedestrian safety. And we did make some recommendations in terms of removing some parking adjacent to a crosswalk. So Chapin and I discussed, I did a deeper dive into any potential hazardous conditions. What can we do? You know, there are the three possible options there. One would be to paint the brackets adjacent to driveways. Unfortunately, this section of Lakeside does not meet the standards that we have to do that. So we can't do that. So that one's eliminated. Resident parking. That's something that we could discuss potentially. One issue on Lakeside is it's not in a designated zone. So it would not qualify to even apply for resident parking. That's not to say that the residents couldn't, you know, rise up and request that the commission create a designated zone there. They could. However, it doesn't eliminate the public parking that the resident requested. So that issue isn't off the table. And then the third thing that we could do is eliminate parking on the other side, on that side of the street on the south side of Lakeside completely. And we just, we didn't find a technical reason to do that. I searched, looked at accidents, looked at everything. And there's just, there's no demonstrable safety condition that would suggest that we remove parking at this time. Happy to answer any questions. Thank you. Bring it back to the, to the commission. Commissioner comments, questions on this one. Mr. Barr. Sure. I, and I should know this, but I, I don't have everything memorized. Rackets near the driveways and doing the site, site lines so that there's no encroachment. Why, why would it not meet standards to be able to do something? Is there not enough parking on the street altogether? I mean, if, if somebody blocks in somebody because there's no painted lines there. Yeah. I mean, we, we've created driveway encroachment policies. So if someone blocks your driveway, they get towed. If someone's within the two foot buffer of your driveway, they get a $75 ticket, which is a ticket that would sting, I would imagine. So, you know, there are policies in place to, to protect those things. But just not with paint. Not at this time. Not, not under the current SOP that we have. So how, how would a tenant or a resident, should I say, just call, call the city and the city would then get a tow truck and or an enforcement officer. All parking services. Okay. Leonard Ducharm's team will take care of it. Because that, that of all these different things, aside from getting residential parking, if it qualified for all those reasons to not be able to get out of your driveway, I guess would be a real big pain. Absolutely. And we have policies in place to deal with that. Okay. I did ask staff to look at the criteria that we have for being eligible for the driveway brackets. We cannot be painting driveway brackets around the entire city as a resource issue. So we have developed criteria and the criteria that this one does not meet is the width of the road. We have that the effective travel width in there so that we can ensure a proper turning movement into and out of a driveway. Some streets as Councillor, Commissioner O'Neill of Ivanko know are very narrow and create real turning movement challenges into driveways. But this street does not exhibit that as a result. We have through the policy determined this one doesn't fit. That said, if we continue to hear that there is a problem, we can look at revising the policy to include streets like this. And I guess it's been communicated to this individual. Yes. So the memo that I submitted to the commission was sent to this resident electronically and was mailed to her as well. And you have the communication, the email that I received at around four o'clock this afternoon. So it was emailed to all of you. But I printed another copy and for your own review records. Thank you. Vice-chair on the Ivanko. So I appreciate those three points that you laid out. And I recognize that staff have policies protocol and a love of data to be able to guide your decisions. I also understand the frustration at least communicated by this resident, which is why I felt like it was important to at least pull it off the consent agenda. So I guess the only, it seems like her only recourse right now is if she feels like her driveway is being encroached. So there's that two foot buffer, but I'm sure there are many of us who, I had such a terrible sense of distance that I probably block a fire hydrant. I don't mean that as a joke, but just like how far away. So there are many people who park right up to the right up to the edge of the driveway. If this resident, and this is a pain, but if she were to call in to have vehicles towed, that data would be tracked. Absolutely. And then with that information. It still wouldn't meet the driveway. It still wouldn't meet the driveway. Okay. Because of the, because of the width of the street. Correct. Correct. So, so then what do we, what do we say then? All parking services use those services to, to enact that. I did look at the data on Lakeside in terms of driveway encroachments. I would not say that I don't have those numbers in front of me, but it was not data that blew me away. I wasn't like, like other streets where there's a lot of driveway encroachments. So it's not something that is a major issue data wise. Lisa didn't jump out at me. I will just add that with all the reports, those are helpful. We can track those. If we turn out that there is a persistent problem that we are not collectively solving with the tools we have. That is where an adjustment to policy would be appropriate because we have not been able to resolve the condition. So at this point, we have not seen an overabundance of encroachment. If it continues to be a problem with education, the hula is working with their tenants. She's working with her neighbors. If it doesn't resolve itself, we can look at adjusting policy in the future. We're always open to doing that. I feel like some of this is the tension between the business or the landlord, whatever hula's role is, and the residents. I think it's important to note that we haven't heard from other residents. I'm not saying that they don't have an opinion, we just haven't heard from them. No, I mean, I appreciate that. That's a good piece of information. And I guess if hula's already involved in these conversations, as we heard from, I think, the first time the resident came, that that's also part of the equation that falls outside the scope of public works and the commission. Okay, no, that's all I have. Thank you. Just over me. I support what your analysis has shown and that we don't need to do anything on that street. And I feel like we're seeing this as another instance of the challenges when residents are in proximity to commercial operations, whether it's the Henry Street deli or the hula or the Blodgett factory. There's always some interesting challenges and sometimes when people live in proximity to that or move into that and they somewhat are accepting the situation as they arrive at it or as it has evolved. And so there's a tension here for that. And I feel like it is an area where there's been commercial activity going way back. So hula is the latest incarnation. So I feel like it is sort of a known situation on that street and it is what it is. And you move into next door to Henry's Diner and you're going to get delivery trucks at 7 in the morning, which, you know, I mean, people may not like that either, but it's part of the neighborhood that you moved into. So I support the recommendation of the staff. Mr. Kennedy. All right. I remind you, I know, thanks for going through this, Phillip. One thing that wasn't clear to me from the memo you've since explained it, but I just want to point out sort of where some of my concerns were. It wasn't clear what the route, what the constraint was that was keeping us, for example, from parking or painting brackets, you know, the driveways. And I was like, I don't, I haven't memorized the MUTCD. I was going to check. Is that a thing there? Right. But it's a city policy as I hear, because we have finite resources and we need to be strategic about this. It's a policy that engineers before I even came along created. So as Chapin pointed out, you know, we have limited resources and we need to try and create some kind of database policy. That makes sense. I would love to see that and give it a read sometime. And could that be shared? Certainly socialize it with the resident that was requesting this, but maybe just attach it to the supplemental information for this discussion here. I think it could be a good resource for us. No problem. Great. We will put it in the packet next month. Great. Thank you. Yeah, there's no action required in this. I think it's important to note that this resident should know that transportation parking is a dynamic situation. And it sounded like towards the end of the email that she sent to me that you as the commission were going to make a decision and that this was done. And we've never revisited it. But if things change and conditions are as bad as what she says, we'll always revisit things. Even next month, we can come back to it. It's never just a permanent choice. Director Spencer, do you have advice how to close this up? We just close it or should we? I think that given that there's no action, I think you can just move on and we'll note that it's in the packet. There's no action indicated. No action needed. Moving forward. Thank you. Item five, Shelburne Street Roundabout and Locust Street Regulations. Yeah, this one seems pretty straightforward, but yeah, welcome to it. Yeah. So, hi. I'm Olivia Doris. I'm a public works engineer. I'm co-managing the Shelburne Street Roundabout project with Laura Wheelock. Yes, this agenda item seems a little straightforward, but we just wanted to, as a courtesy, provide you a little status update on the Roundabout project as it relates to the construction. So, as you're aware, construction on Shelburne Street is progressing with the installation of subsurface utilities within the project area. Currently, the contractor is working through the installation of water and sewer infrastructure between Locust Street and Adams Court. They've completed subsurface utility work on Locust Street and within the last month, Restored Locust Street have installed new granite curbing along Locust Street and a base course of pavement. They're still kind of working, utilizing that as a work zone to park trucks and whatnot, but we hope that two-way traffic can be installed in the near term. The contractor has been blasting ledge throughout the project area since October, I believe. They did anticipate encountering ledge throughout the project. They did not, however, anticipate encountering the volume of ledge that they have. They didn't anticipate encountering it as shallow as they have, and they didn't anticipate the literal hardness of the material, which made it very difficult to remove by mechanical means such as drilling and hammering. So they have been blasting over the last couple of months. They've been utilizing traffic detours along Flynn Ave, Pine Street, Howard Street, South Willard Street to facilitate more efficient progression of work as the blasting has occurred and the subsurface utility work has been progressing. So those detours will remain in place over the next several months as they continue to blast. The contractor does plan to continue work through the winter for as long as the weather permits. This is to make up for some time loss due to delays in encountering ledge. And that's about it as far as construction as it relates to the traffic regulation changes. The Locust Street roundabout approach imposes a geometric change to the top of the street, essentially reducing the effective width of the roadway. For that reason, some parking spaces need to be removed at the top of the street. We've also proposed a removal of the time restricted spaces on the north side of the street. In addition to our required outreach process, we've also met with the principal of the Christ the King School and a group of very invested residents, a group of residents that's been very invested throughout the project due to the proximity of their residences to the project. And in general, all those folks were generally in support of this change. So that's about it. Happy to answer any questions. All right. Great. Thank you. Question or overview? Questions on your end. I think I understand your diagram, but is it just taking this parking that's at the, it would be the east end on both sides? Were there parking on both sides? Yes. So it's in the yellow marked on your map? Yep. The two yellow areas? Yep. The north section on restricted? Yes. That's correct. So I think on the, so yes, the east end of Locust Street on the south side of the street, I believe there were two spaces removed. And then on the north side, or yeah, north side of the street, there were five or six. I can't remember off the top of my head. Something like that. Something like that. So you're not restricting parking within 150 feet of the intersection due to geometric constraints? No. Thank you. I understand that. Thank you. You're welcome. Mr. Guvay. I don't really have much to say. It seems pretty straightforward and makes sense to get rid of the parking there to accommodate for the geometric changes. So, yeah. Thank you. Thank you. It is pretty straightforward, especially once I saw the diagram. I was about to ask a question, and you referenced the diagram. Oh, yeah, there it is. So I thought it was important to just generally give you guys an update on the construction. Yeah, thank you. No, I'm good. Vice-chair O'Neill-Vaco. Yeah, no. I mean, gosh, I got to say, from my perspective, living not right near there is Chair Hogan but close enough. Great job. I think your communication efforts seem to be going really well. My husband comments every time he has to drive through there. This is the best driving experience he's ever had going through. Oh. And he's like, are they going to make it even better? He's like, this is fantastic. So no, no, no questions. Great. Thank you. I do live with the close enough to feel the rumbles from the glass. Yeah, no, it's been going well. Thanks. One clarification on the ordinance. Similar, I guess with regards to the first one on the no parking area, it seems like in similar cases, an ordinance specifically says the language on either side. And I think that's implied here, but maybe just for consistency. Sure, yeah. I would say the same. We'll review it with the attorney's office. What we have here, but maybe make sure it lines up with the other no parking areas on both sides. All right, nothing further. Are there any public comments on this Locust Street item? One comment. Laura Wheelock, DPW. This is just the first of a few changes that we're going to be able to bring forward to you. As Olivia mentioned, they actually installed the curb a little ahead of time, which has kind of forced our hand to bring this regulation change forward to you guys now versus as a complete package. But with the geometry change of the entire intersection, we're going to have to make similar changes on each leg as we kind of go around. We'll hopefully bring you more of a complete package for the other parts of this. Contractors just kind of, from their challenges in work, needed to get this part done sooner rather than later. So part one. That context. Great. All right, with that, we're all clear on public comment. Anyone on the phone? Mr. Golding? At this time, there's no one summed up. All right. I would welcome a motion on this. Anyone has one? You're voting on two parking, two proposed regulations. All right, I make a motion to approve staff's recommendation to adjust the Locust Street parking for the Shelburne Roundabout. Thank you for that motion. And seconded from Commissioner Barr. Thank you. Is there any discussion around that motion? All right, let's go to a vote. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye for myself. Any opposed? Motion passes. Thank you very much. All right. Item 6, University Place parking regulations. That's right. You know, technology. You should have a prompt to accept. I have a prompt. I will join as a panelist. Share my screen. OK. Hello again, Philip Peterson with Public Works here to talk about University Place and the Traffic Regulation Approvals. We came to you a year ago, exactly a year ago, to discuss the preliminary plans and the approved concept. And now we're here to get approvals on the proposed traffic regulations. So just kind of sum things up. We are proposing to shrink the road, put it on a road diet, remove one lane of travel, make it a one-way, going north, put in some bike lanes. There will be a vehicle loading zone in front of Ira Allen Chapel. It'll be 60 feet long. And the food trucks will be consolidated on the southern end of University Place near Royal Tyler Theater. And let's see. The no parking on the east side of the road, vehicle loading zone, food trucks, one way. What's that? Contraflow. Oh, yes, Contraflow Bike Lanes, which is also included in my proposal. And this is what it looks like in plan view. We are currently going through plan comments with our consultant. So fortunately, I don't have plans to share with you today. So that's a summation of the traffic regulation changes. The one-way designation, with exception to Contraflow Bike Lane, the no parking on the east side of University Place, with an exception for the vehicle loading zone and the food truck vending spaces. And in terms of timeline, we've presented this to the Duke at their November meeting. And they are supportive of our direction. So now we are seeking approval from the commission to move forward with the traffic regulations. Once we have that, we will go to City Council Board of Finance and then other UVM boards and committees and begin construction in the spring. Happy to answer any questions. Great. Thank you for that. Bring it back for Commissioner Discussion at this point. Commissioner Kelly. Yeah. So I just finished up my last semester at UVM. But I have a lot of experience walking on this corridor. And I'm super excited about all the changes. I just have one question. And it's just on the diagram that you showed us are the crosswalks that are put there. Is that the final representation of what there will be? That is. Because I know that the crosswalk that I and every person that lives around me pretty much uses to get to campus isn't there. And I'm sure that people are just going to walk across the street anyway because they have been. So yeah, I was wondering if that's like a possibility to change that? No. No, and I'll tell you why. So we've had a lot of discussions around pedestrian behavior on University Place. And it may seem like more crosswalks is better. That's not necessarily so. There's actually too many crosswalks. We are providing too many opportunities for conflict between pedestrian bicyclists and vehicles. So that's why we've consolidated. And we're creating this crossing plaza. It will be an opportunity for a mass amount of students to cross. The other thing that we're doing is we're widening the sidewalks. So that will provide more opportunities to move folks on the sidewalks. And hopefully, I understand what you're saying. We don't want to create new goat paths, for lack of a better term. But we also don't want to have too many crosswalks. There's standards around this. Does that answer your question? Yeah, I totally agree that there's too many crosswalks currently. And will there be a sidewalk on both sides, like one where we put it on the other side that doesn't currently have one? That's correct. OK. Yeah, that's great then. For the entire length, but for the critical sections where there can be pedestrian activity to get to a formal crossing. Yeah, great. I have no other comments. I'm super excited about this. So thank you. Thank you. Patricia Barr. Thank you. I'm somewhat familiar with this from the university side. I did have one question, though, for the loading, unloading spaces. Is that going to be park mobile, or is that going to be designed 30 minutes only? Vehicle loading zones. And with a vehicle loading zone, that will allow for vehicle and trucks to be able to utilize it. And it will be strictly vehicle loading zone only. So no park mobile, no, none of that. And if cars just decide to squat and sit there. They're going to get a really big ticket. OK. Being in the profession, that's sometimes a hard thing if there's no way of knowing how long they've been there other than shocking tires and so forth. And I'm not suggesting anything else. I'm just curious. Oh, of course. Yeah. Well, Jim knows that. So obviously, if something's not working, we will come back to the commission and we'll make changes. Got it. Obviously. Thank you. That is obvious. Thank you. That's all right. Thanks. Vice-chair O'Neill-Vaco. One question, I think, about that. I should look here, because I can see it better. What is it saying? Tightening the turning radius from Main Street onto University Place. That's part of this. How much, I guess, it's such a disaster right now. This is the way I go to work. It tightens the turn radius, but that island's going to go. OK. I think that's good. I knew where you were going with this. I didn't want to jump ahead of you. And the fire department is also reviewing these plans as well. And we've put turning template analysis for emergency vehicles to make sure that everything's good to go, and it is. But the turn will actually, it will be tightened, but it will be easier. Right. Well, if you look into that island, which just makes you feel like you're out in the shipping lane. More islands. All right. That's good. I'm excited. I'm really excited for this. Good job. Thanks. All right. Thank you. Commissioner Overby. I also had seen this last year. And so I know there's even other plans. So at some point, getting it to this stage will do part of the plan. But also, it's going to slow everything down. It's almost, in the future, may turn it into like a plaza kind of thing to slow things down anyway. Eventually, that's sort of where it looks like it's maybe going if there's money to do it. But I just had a question. In this part of it, is the area in front of Ira Allen that actually is a cut out so that it would be out of the way of the bike lanes? Yeah. So it's a cut in of some sort for a couple vehicles? Yeah. I hate to use this term, but it's a little like a chicane. Yeah, it's got a different term, whatever that, pull out or something like that. Yeah, so but I just want to make sure, yes. It's not true. Yeah, they do not conflict with the bike lane. Right, it will not. Yeah, so that people could get out of the way. So like a bus could actually park there to load people into the Ira Allen chapel. Yes, correct, correct. And the food truck area as well will be. It has, OK, I see that. Yeah, that one was more obviously a cut off. It wasn't as obvious in the artwork here about the one for the Ira Allen. And the question that Commissioner Kennedy asked about the crosswalks, I think it is a relevant question as well. And I know it was discussed when we first did that. So I think one of the questions that related to that was the fact that on the other side, there are some of those old carriage steps. And there was a question about what was going to happen to those because things weren't going to line up with those. Is there any thought yet of, is that, that's not written in here, obviously, but with the realignment of the crosswalks. What's happening to those historic little stone steps? OK, Laura Wheelock with TPW, the voice in the background. Those will get removed so that we don't encourage jaywalking or crossing at those locations because this is a roadway project. They're not accessible crossings. And so we're required by ProEig to provide accessible crossings at every place we do designate a crosswalk. We've had this project reviewed by Act 250 in the historic preservation sense is that it's going to get documented, photographed, but ultimately removed. Can they find a way to give them to somebody who can actually put them somewhere they could be, you know, do a lottery or something? It's tough because you don't actually know what they look like underneath or what they're constructed of or how durable they're going to be. So to kind of set that up ahead of time is going to be challenging because they're going to be used all the way until the time that they're not used, the project set to start construction immediately after commencement. So they're going to be used all the way up until their road's closed. We're hoping to get some of the project underway even before then. Yeah. Well, I just think it's a great opportunity for somebody if you're not going to use them there to actually make use of them because we don't allow those little historical things just disappear over time, you know? So there's a few locations in the city that do collect those. Yeah, well, somebody might be able to use them somewhere. UVM does have folks on campus that do historic preservation. And they're part of the conversation. Right, once. So I'm sure that will definitely be, as we get further along in the project, folks from UVM will be involved. And they'll have something to say about it. It's a small thing, but I really am interested in historical preservation of things, even if it has to get moved. Yeah. Yeah, and I will certainly bring that back to our design team and see what everyone says can be done. I'll replace my front steps on Walnut Street. I have a feeling UVM is going to want to relocate them somewhere on UVM. I'm sure. I hope they get put somewhere useful. That's all I have. Thank you. Thank you. Take this. Sit in chair. We've cycled through our commissioners here. I don't have anything further on my scent. And exciting project in the regulations look good from my read. Check and see if there's anyone who shouldn't public comment on this item. No one is signed up online for public comment. OK, takers in the room. I think we've got a couple of holdouts for the next item. Commissioner Overby. I said one other thing. What's going to be the plan to help remind people, one this does go into place, that there is going to be no southbound traffic? Some kind of signage or something needs to be put up because people are going to not realize that. Well, we definitely have this. It'll be a big project to educate people that they can't whip in there and use that going southbound off of Colchester Avenue. Thanks. Reviewing the sign package right now with the consultants actually. So it's definitely a part of it. Yeah, I'm sure it is. I just figured we've got to think about that. Thanks. All right. I'll bring it back to the commission for a vote. Motion to accept. We have a motion from Commissioner Barr. Thank you. And I'll second that motion. Seconded from Vice Chair O'Neill-Babacco. Thank you. Is there any discussion around that motion? All right, let's go to a vote. It's all in favor if we say aye. Aye. Aye, for myself. Any opposed? All right, the motion passes. Thank you. Moving forward, item 7, North Champlain Street Protected Bike Lane and Associated Regulatory Changes. For this item, we have Nicole Loesch attending virtually and Elizabeth Ross here in person, who are going to provide a little bit of an overview. Great, thank you. Hi, everyone. Elizabeth Ross, hopefully we're not getting any feedback. I should be fully muted. OK. And yes, Nicole and I are co-presenting with her virtual and me in the room, so bear with us in case there are any challenges with that. Nicole is going to kick us off with the first few slides and get us going with this. Nicole Loesch, for those of you that maybe haven't met, it's good to see everyone. It's been a while. I wanted to give a quick introduction to the reason behind the parking and traffic changes that we recommended. And so I'm going to jump right into this. Make one change on my screen here, sir. So this is stemming from a Protected Bike Lane project that we are planning to build next year. The Protected Bike Lane was really introduced as a concept in planned ATV walk bike back in 2017. We then jumped into developing the concept a little bit further with some neighborhood meetings and conceptual designs in 2018. That culminated with a demonstration project of a two-way Protected Bike Lane during Open Streets in 2018. It was really well received. And then we picked up the project again just recently, checked the traffic analysis one more time and updated our plans, made sure this was the concept we wanted to move forward with and expanded it a bit to include shared lanes and some bike lanes on Manhattan Drive as well. So just a quick snapshot of what North Champlain generally looks like today. There's little asterisks here because the southern coast block is a little bit narrower, but the general configuration is a northbound bike lane, two travel lanes, and a parking lane. And in the future, what we'll see is a two-way bikeway on the west side of the road in place of the bike lane and one travel lane, retaining one northbound travel lane and retaining the parking lane. We did consider an alternative for a pair protected bike lane with Park Street that ultimately came back to the two-way protected lane as the preferred option, so that is what we're moving forward with. And I mentioned that we are including Manhattan Drive and so this is just a plan view. The whole plan set has actually included the packet for anybody that wanted to take a look at this in more detail. These are the preliminary plans, but Manhattan Drive includes bike lanes in both directions between Park Street and Northam Plain. So Park Street's over here, Northam Plain is here, and then the bike lanes transition into shared lane markings on either side after this section. We plan to come back to the commission next month to talk about some potential parking changes just on this first block of Manhattan Drive, but we are still working through that process. All right, so just a quick recap of what's there currently. Residential parking restrictions are in place between Pearl Street and Monroe. The street width is narrower there, and in our anecdotal observations, we have seen that there seems to be pretty ample parking on that block for residents. There are some time-limited parking spaces along the corridor sprinkled throughout and certainly on North Street. And we do know that several businesses receive deliveries in the bike lane or perhaps in the travel, the left travel lane, which is a condition that we're took into consideration when we made our recommendations coming to you today. So moving into our recommendations, what would be there in the future? We're recommending the removal of approximately five residential parking spaces in front of 10 North Champlain, which would be transferred to a fire lane or be used to establish a fire lane for designated emergency response at that location as they do receive a higher number of calls at that location. We are fine-tuning the hours for 15-minute parking near Peru Street on North Champlain for the business there, and three parking spaces would be re-established that have been removed in recent years would be going back in near Peru Street as the bike lane would be switching sides of the street. And then near Vermont Paint, we're recommending restricting three parking spaces to be used to create a vehicle loading zone currently for Vermont Paint. That business there receives deliveries. The two 15-minute parking spaces on North Street would be going from 15-minute customer parking to vehicle loading, which would allow for trucks and short-term visitors to park there, trucks for deliveries. Establishing a stop sign for contra-flow bicyclists going southbound on North Champlain when they stop at Pearl Street. And you'll see quite a few regulatory changes that are really cleaning up the ordinance language. There were a lot of things that were kind of just left over over the years and things that might not have gotten changed appropriately at the time or in a timely fashion. So that's our last item there. And then just a touch to go through the engagement and feedback that we're hearing. Leading up to this point, there have been neighborhood meetings. There was an open streets demonstration and story map survey and all of that, through all of that engagement, we have received broad support for a protected bike lane on this street and it was identified in Plan BTWalk bike as well as a high-priority location for a protected bike lane. Of course, not without some concerns. Residents have concerns for the contra-flow conflict, so that contra-flow bike movement is not necessarily expected. It is still somewhat unusual or not the norm necessarily. So that can be a niche cause of concern sometimes. This would also has the potential to calm traffic as it would be taking traffic, vehicle traffic from two lanes down to one and increasing those different activities on the street, increasing bike traffic, hopefully. And then the concern for where are the current businesses that do honestly rely on the bike lane to receive deliveries now? Where will they get their delivery? So that's part of what we were trying to address as well. So the feedback that we heard in the letters that we sent out for those parking revisions, we did have help doing outreach with a local resident and a former employee of Vantage Press who kind of knows everyone in the area. So he was very happy to make those connections and talk with people and get that feedback from the local businesses. So, and then after we sent out letters, we received eight emails and two phone calls. Haven't received, as far as I know, any since I sent the packet to you guys this afternoon. So within those 10 pieces of feedback that were received, there were three concerns about the parking changes across from Vermont Paint. Two pieces of feedback related to concerns regarding the 15 minute spaces on North Street and how the proposed changes would work sharing the use between truck deliveries and customers wanting to still be able to pop into the businesses there. And then three pieces of feedback that were related to concerns around losing the residential parking spaces in front of 10 North Champlain though, two of them said we're still supportive of this project but still a little apprehensive about losing those spaces. So that's the quick summary. In terms of next steps for the project, we at this time are not proposing any amendments or changes to the recommendations that you see in the memo. Given the fact that we do feel that there is sufficient parking for residents in front of the, for the block between Pearl and Monroe and that the other changes we're proposing are really to help support the local businesses while accommodating customers and residents at the same time. So it's, you know, of course, like so many of the things that we do, it's a giant balancing act. As Nicole mentioned previously, we plan to come back next month with the Manhattan Drive parking considerations. Our hope is to take this to bid for construction in February with construction starting in April, this coming spring and the new traffic regulations would go into effect at that time too, of course. It's the end of our presentation and happy to hear your feedback, questions, concerns. All right. Thank you. I'll bring it back for commissioner discussion on this one. Recording in progress. Sorry about that. Commissioner Barr, would you like to start? It's, I mean, the fire lanes, I think are required for safety. I think that we would definitely need to keep those in there and the rest of it just seems logical and you've done a lot of outreach. And I'd like to hear some of the comments that others might make, but at this point, I'm in agreement. All right. Vice-Chair O'Neill-Levaco. Yeah, I think my only question is about that, the space across from Vermont Paint Store, I think because just reading the comments from folks that you included in the packet. Sorry to interrupt. So as it's written here, the vehicle, those spots will be still available for parking, for residents, when it's not the loading zone, right? So the loading zone hours are indicated weekdays 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. I don't wanna say the wrong thing. So it would be designated as vehicle loading. So that means that the truck deliveries could be made for Vermont Paint and that people who need to do quick trips to basically, it would have to be short-term parking. So someone may be visiting Vermont Paint or potentially they need to run into their house for five minutes. We don't have a designated specific list of what those uses could be, but vehicle loading is a very short-term parking turnover. Okay. Yeah. So for businesses, for loading and unloading at Vermont Paint, because I remember that being an issue before. And then after 5 p.m., it's open for residents. Oh, yes. Coming home from work to be parked there until they leave at seven o'clock in the morning. That's correct, yeah, thank you. Yes, that vehicle loading is time restricted from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays, yes. Okay, just wanted to make sure I understood that. That's really trying to accommodate the business, which we did try to get a more specific timeframe for their deliveries and we weren't able to get any more specific than that. So that was the best, the most focused timeframe that we could get. Right, okay. Okay, and I guess with clear signage, I mean, I feel like when we make these shifts and these are three different kind of parking shifts, use shifts on that street, clear signage and then waiting for feedback, you know, on how it's all working. But it sounds like just in reading through the processes over the past couple of months, you've done a pretty good job of addressing the concerns about the businesses and balancing the needs of the residents as well as implementing this piece of the WAP bike master plan. I think that's it, that was my big concern. Okay, thanks. All right, thank you. Commissioner Overby. I don't have any questions. I think you're working hard to make this thing happen and I'm generally supportive of any of these improvements to add bicycle lanes, even though there are challenges with people that are, you know, maybe have way here like I do, thinking that they aren't gonna be on the bike lanes, but I really feel like it's a good thing we're making these changes and, you know, if you build it, people will maybe use it. So I'm optimistic that you're doing the best you can to start with this. And I feel like these are gonna be things that we need to do. And as we've all earlier heard, if there's something that we didn't do right, we figure out a way to improve it, correct it, adjust it. So I support what you're doing with this to get those bike lanes in. And I'm hoping we can get some more bicycles out there so people can't say, well, nobody's gonna ride on those bike lanes because we really need to start riding on the bike lanes, whether it's an electronic bike or something else. So thank you for your work on that. All right, thank you. Commissioner Kennedy. Yeah, I don't really have any questions either. I'm in support of this plan and I really appreciate the inclusion of some overnight spots as someone who lives in the Old North End. I know that like one spot makes a huge difference. So that's great. And yeah, I thank you for your presentation. Can you, you mentioned with Vermont Pinkham, you weren't able to find any more precise timing of the loading zones. Can we just talk for a minute about the proposed loading zone on North Street, gathered sort of some mixed response to that proposal from the adjacent businesses and I'm curious about the timing there. And, you know, in reading the, the ordinance says a loading zone for vehicles loading and unloading. It's not immediate obviously from that read that it's acceptable to park there briefly to run into a business. But I'm sort of catching that in the nature of the conversation and what you're proposing here. So through conversation with parking services, we've understood that they essentially treat vehicle loading, any space designated as such, similarly to 15 minute parking. So really they would, if we're thinking about how people are using this practically and are they gonna get in trouble if they are not a giant truck making a delivery, they're gonna only really come back to enforce that if they're seeing someone who's, the car has been parked and empty for a longer period of time. If they come back again, you know, 15 minutes later, whatever it may be and that car hasn't moved, there's no one do actively doing anything coming and going, they would potentially enforce it at that point or if they receive a complaint from someone saying, hey, this car's been parked here overnight in a vehicle loading space. Like this definitely isn't right. They would go check that out. But, you know, our understanding that we've come to understand is, and in the way that we're trying to accommodate both needs for the customers and for the truck deliveries is that if we sign it as vehicle loading, it can accommodate both. You know, as you mentioned, we have heard some feedback from the businesses and some, you know, building owners about the fact that it's challenging to accommodate both because if you do have a truck making a delivery there and a customer wants to come and stop in, you can't have two vehicles in one space at the same time and vice versa, if there's a customer parked in the space and a truck is trying to make a delivery, where does that truck go? So that is a conflict of two different interests and, you know, currently, they would just have to find somewhere else to go to make that delivery. Yeah. If you have members of the business community, I'm sure who would be happy to share their perspectives as well. Yeah, we'll look forward to that in public comment. And just a moment, we will circle back to you in a moment. Thank you. Shh, shh, shh, shh. Can you clarify the current loading practices at Vermont Payne Company? I read in the packet refers to double parking on the east side, are they, but it sounds like they're really parking the bike lane on the west side, is that right? Nicole, do you remember what their current, what their current? They do, they currently park in the bike lane and the left traveling, and I may have just mistyped that and said east instead of west, trying to scan them and now to find it, but yeah, effectively they are using the bike lane and the left traveling for their deliveries right now. Gotcha. Thank you. And on the, on the connections, suppose when heading south, southbound on a bicycle and shows up at Pearl Street, could you sort of talk me through what they do there? And I noticed in the, in scanning the plans, there was some signage about bikes use, pedestrian call bond or something, but I didn't catch what's happening on the south end of Pearl, for instance. I've seen plans before, would you be able to pull those up? It might be easier for us to look at. Sure. And I can also share if it's easier. Yeah, that would be great. Nicole, thanks. Okay, peek here to the beginning. So this is Pearl Street and North Champlain. There is a hybrid pedestrian beacon at this location right now. And so we, in talking with our consultants over the options of what to do here and how to accommodate bicyclists at this location, the best option given traffic volumes and gaps, the best option seems to be just to have a stop control for bicyclists. And so they would treat this similar to just a stop control intersection. You know, they would come, they'd wait, look for a gap, and if they're turning left, then would go when it's clear. So they wouldn't have a push button or anything like that at this location. Gotcha, thank you. And likewise, do I have it right? Suppose someone's heading northbound in the bike on a bicycle, if they get to say North Street or even Manhattan for that matter and you wanna turn right, you're positioned over on the left. Is that, am I reading that right? That you basically sort of dismount, hop over to the curb, push the pedestrian signal? This one, we're actually proposing to re-phase the signal. Bikes could use the pedestrian signal, but it would be on a cycle. And so they wouldn't have to dismount to try to push the button, but because of the way that the signal is actuated here and looking at the traffic analysis, allowing the signal just to come up as a regular cycle should work at this location. So that is our plan here, is we're directing bikes to just follow the pad signals, not having it be actuated and just having it come up on a regular rotation. Great, thank you. And likewise, further up at Manhattan, there was reference of a bike signal, is that a thing, like a dedicated bike lap? Yeah, this one may be harder to see and I think it's actually at the very end. Oh yeah. Yeah, just back to you. Yeah, this is a very busy signal plan sheet, but yes, this one will have a pedestrian, or sorry, a bicycle signal face. And I am probably not gonna remember exactly how this timing goes, but there will be a new signal head for bikes at this location. So this one, basically every intersection along the way is slightly different, but this one, there will be a bicycle signal to follow. Okay. We are adding new pedestrian signals as well, just to point out for this crosswalk that the crosswalk is currently there, but there are no pedestrian signals. Great, thanks, I know it's exciting to see some of the adjacent improvements on the Manhattan Drive as well. Yes, that's all I have at the moment. I look forward to a public comment on this item. I know we have a couple takers in the room. Yeah, that's all. I will just add one piece of context that the commission has heard over time concern about the park and Manhattan intersection. And part of this proposal, as you may have seen in the plan set, does tighten that intersection and narrows specifically the Park Street throat that will materially, I think address some of the school, walk to school concerns that the commission has previously heard. You can see there in the bottom left, the curb moving six feet out into the roadway to narrow the Park Street pedestrian crossing. Okay, thanks. That's outstanding, thank you. All right, public comments, we'll start in the room. Any takers, welcome to come up if you're interested in speaking on this item. All right, thank you. Please make sure we get your name on the clipboard as well. My name's not here, it's Graham Taylor. All right. I'm a resident at Ten North Champlain. The building has 50 units in the structure and has 17 parking spots. Which wouldn't be approved today without board of adjustment or zoning approval, et cetera. There's three visitor parking spots in the facility that are only allowed for 90 minutes. So I live there and I have a son in Morrisville. He wants to come and visit me. I have a placard from the police department that allows me to park on Pearl and this transferable. So I give it to him and he puts it in his window so we're not breaking any rules or laws. By limiting those, it means that I can visit my family for any more than 90 minutes at a time which isn't realistic. There is a large, more than five stalls that are not used other than by the bus company on Pearl Street, which they do illegally because the signs say police parking only and they're always there. I don't know why we couldn't have some parking on that. I understand that's for court purposes but I've never seen or very rarely seen a police car there. So I'm wondering if we can't take those five stalls from Pearl, transfer, I'm sorry, from Champlain, transfer them over onto Pearl and so that we can use our placards there and have our family visit us and then it wouldn't interfere with any of the rules and regulations that the staff have suggested. And I'm a biker, so I'm not anti-bike, I like what you're doing. So you're suggesting making that fire lane, moving the fire lane to Pearl Street as opposed to North Champlain. Once you're taking away from North Champlain, put them on Pearl Street. And they'd only be permitted with placards as they are on Pearl Street now during a certain period of time. I think it's leave the fire lane where staff recommends it but move the parking, the displaced parking to Pearl. Okay, that's what I want to make sure you're interested. Okay, thank you. Great, that makes sense. Yeah, thank you for the input. Pardon me? Thank you for the input, I appreciate it. Thank you. All rights, anyone else, sir? My name's Bill Bissonette. I just needed some clarification on the timing of when the fire lane was closed on the timing of when these signs on the corner of Rose and North, presently there's two signs, vehicle loading and unloading seven to 12 p.m. And below that sign, 15 minute parking, 12 to 10. So in front of North Street where they're proposing to add the vehicles loading and unloading, the presently is 15 minute parking. So I just wanted some clarification to understand what the timing might be on these signs that they're gonna incorporate down the street. 2004, the city spent six million bucks to try to rehab and reinvigorate the retail corridor between North Winooski Avenue and North Avenue. Presently there's 10 businesses between Rose and Park and there's about 13 legitimate parking spaces. So we have to be very conscious of that access for customers. Without customers, we won't have to worry too much about loading trucks. There won't be anything to have to load or unload. So it's a concern that I have, understanding the dynamic of the area because we have businesses there and we just wanted to, and I'm certain it's something that we can get squared away and address. It's just in the signage and how that might be proposed. I think you and I had that conversation this afternoon. So, tell me what the plan is. Gotcha. Got you receiving clarification on the timing of Rose and North Street and about generally the plan for sporting business parking and that. Absolutely, yep. Thank you. Yeah, we'll welcome staff to respond to that in a moment, but let's circle through the rest of our public comment and make sure we come back on that one. Thank you, sir. All right, Mr. Gurling, any, anyone on the phone for public comment? We have a chat that showed up. So I'm just going to offer the members of the public who are on the phone or on Zoom with us to use the raise your hand function. If you want to speak during public comment and kind of raise those questions, you're yourselves happy to read that too. And so for the sake of time, if I think maybe if it's all right with the chair, I'll read the question slash comment we got. Sure, thank you. Unless we have a member of the public raise their hand. And the question is, how do we go about opposing this change near Vermont paint? We're making, oh, Justin Conan, I'm going to promote you over to talk. You should be able to do that now. Awesome, thank you so much. I appreciate that. Sorry, I totally did not recognize the process here. But yes, I do know multiple people who are very much against that decision, but I don't think that it's been fully conveyed to them and or they've been able to voice their opinion properly. Is there any way for us to like be able to have like a secondary discussion on this to where we can kind of like be involved in it? Cause I think it's all kind of like hit a few with the people involved on this street, kind of like kind of like a shock, but they never really had any warning. If that makes sense. That comment was, if I could clarify, especially with the gardening note, the loading zone near Vermont paint company, or is there? Exactly, yes. Now that one in particular. All right, yeah, I know. Thank you for that. Yeah, anything further from your end? No, not so much. That's really all that I had. Okay. Great, thank you. Thank you for that. I'll note it and look to circle back on a number of these as well. Mr. Goulding, is there anyone else with hands raised? No one else signed up and no other comments. Okay, thanks. Can you invite a staff response to the question seeking clarification around the rows in North area? I guess Mr. Bissner was interested in clarifying exactly the timing of those restrictions. So I was actually looking into another question when that comment was being made. Nicole, I don't know if you caught that question and have. Yeah, I did catch the question. I will be honest, I don't try to scan our traffic regulations online because I don't know exactly what is that place that rows in North, but at this location, we are proposing to change the time of the current 15 minute parking. So right now it is, let me make sure I get this right, right now it is assigned as 15 minute parking between eight and six. And so we're proposing to keep that the same. We're just changing it from 15 minute parking to vehicle loading parking. I'm sorry, to vehicle loading. So the time restriction is not changing on that sign. Gotcha. So instead of 15 minute from eight a.m. to six p.m., it's proposed to be more general vehicle loading from eight a.m. to six p.m. Right. So staff response to the question regarding sort of the businesses, and maybe this is one in the same there, do you see the sort of answering the mail for the business need in that vicinity? Right, so to give a little more context, the recommendation that we're bringing tonight was out of, it came out of conversations with Nanyans and Ty Pat. You know, Nanyans had expressed that they do currently use the existing bike lane for their deliveries and that their delivery driver will often get ticketed parking there, and they did express that they would like to have a designated loading zone. And then we heard from someone else at Nanyans after we sent out the mailing that they were not happy with the proposed recommendation that it was going to be impacting their customer availability to park, so that was an unfortunate kind of differing of views from two different people at that business. And at Ty Pat, they currently get their deliveries on North Champlain in the bike lane north of North Street. And we were also trying to support them not having to get their deliveries in the bike lane. And felt that this was, we explored looking at loading zones in a few different areas around the intersection at North Champlain, and this was between the curb cuts and driveways, this was really the best location that would allow both Nanyans and Ty Pat to benefit from the loading zone and try to get customers the opportunity to park there as much as possible in between those deliveries. So, Nicole, definitely please jump in if I'm missing anything, but it was really trying to accommodate all of those needs as best as we could. I understand we're talking about there is not pouring concrete, we're talking about signage and things that can be reevaluated as needed down the road. Any reactions I don't, in the proposed changes here, there's no mention of the residential parking ordinances. I gathered that Section 23 fire lanes is proposing fire lanes in what's currently residential parking today. So I guess the question is, does there need to be a corresponding ordinance changed about the residence parking, and is that a conversation for another meeting where we might consider perhaps alternate locations for that if there's maybe opportunities on Pearl Street or elsewhere? Right, Nicole, you might be able to answer this better. I know that there's existing residential parking on Monroe Street right nearby, but I do believe that North Champlain Residence can't park on Monroe Street, it's kind of separated by street. So I believe that any requests to share residential parking between streets have to come from residents and that the city can't initiate that change outside of residential requests. And Philips in the room and probably knows a lot more about residential parking than I do and how that all works, but I think I would say that there are, there could potentially be opportunities to look at ways to expand or better accommodate some of that residential parking in the future. And I guess one other thing in response to the comments that we've heard here, could you remind us of the sort of the outreach plan and sort of prior public meetings like in the neighborhood and so forth? Like I see there's several mailings or flyers that are included in the packet here. Could you sort of like remind us all of that? Yeah, so all of the letters that were attached to the packet were just the different areas that were making changes for tonight, regulatory changes for tonight. Nicole was more involved. I was out on leave during some of the previous outreach so I think Nicole could walk us through in more detail the previous outreach before this point. For our most recent public meeting back then, I think it was in March. We also did a mailing to the North Champlain neighborhood to try to make sure everybody was aware of the public meeting happening around that time. We also followed up with the story map, web-based survey for anybody that wasn't able to attend the meeting directly. That meeting was also recorded and available online so we sent out a front porch form notice as well in addition to the mailing. But basically the mailing tried to provide all the various options for how to reach us and talk about what we were considering. At that point, we didn't have the specific parking recommendations that we do now. That was early in the process where we were trying to make sure that the concept we were moving forward with was well supported and to identify the types of regulatory changes we might need to implement it. And that's really what led us here for these specific parking changes. Gotcha, thank you. All right, I guess I'll bring it back to the commission at this point. We are seeking action on this on the set of regulation changes this evening, acknowledging there's, we need to, we're planning this another look at Manhattan Drive related changes next month, perhaps. And as stated earlier tonight with all of this, sometimes we need to sometime to see it shake out and there's I think an openness from the department to revisit regulations as needed. If we find that things aren't working down the road. Yes, and I just wanted to also mention that while there is a 100 foot stretch on North Champlain in front of 10 North Champlain where that fire line would be going in, I just want to clarify that it's not removing all of the parking on that block between Pearl and Monroe. The remainder of the parking, residential parking north of that 100 foot stretch up to Monroe Street would remain in place. Yeah. I'm just curious to address the gentleman's concern about removing the parking for the fire lane and what are the possibilities of if not taking all, taking some of the Pearl Street parking. I believe that the police cars that sometimes park there is when they have court dates across the street. Yes, that's my understanding. So I think his question was whether we could take the lost residential parking and put it in where the police parking is now on Pearl Street. Yeah. Yeah, so that's not something that we've explored to this point. And so I'm just wondering if you could explore it and then just see it, not all some. I don't know how that, I honestly don't know how that would work, but I believe that they have that for going to the courthouse. So just to try to figure out if we were to look into that, so I'm not sure. Yeah, that's just my comment would be to, if we could look into that at least to make it a consideration, if not all, maybe some. Yeah, with that, I would welcome a motion if anyone is so inclined. Why are we being so shy? I'll make the motion to accept the recommended changes to accommodate the North Champlain, Boyk Lane. I'll second that. All right, we have a motion from Commissioner Overby to accept staff's recommendations and it's been seconded by Commissioner Kennedy. Thank you for that. Is there any discussion around the motion? All right, let us go to a vote then. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye, for myself. Any post? The motion passes. All right. Yeah, thank you so much for the work on this. All right, where are we? Top of the hour for item eight, the director's report. All right, thank you very much. So as you can tell from my director's report it was productive month. We were very pleased to have council support for myriad of recruitment and retention strategies for our department as we seek to fill 30 open positions that we had last month. And very much appreciate any outreach. I know I've heard from a number of commissioners about efforts to help us fill our open positions, especially the crossing guards. So thanks for your help in getting that word out as you'll see in our report. We are making progress to fill those open positions. I did want to just update folks on the Champlain Parkway project that we are expecting the record of decision, the federal permit for that project to be issued in the next four to six weeks. And at that point, we will plan to put the project out to bid this winter with construction starting the latter half of 2022. The additional radar speed feedback signs as you've heard in your role in the commission and number of communities are interested in this, especially as a traffic calming program has not been able to move as quickly as the requests have come in. So those will be ready to be employed here in February and we'll have four sets total. So we'll really be able to get a much broader penetration on those across the community. Let's see, next month we're planning to be back here for an intensive update on the integrated plan and our efforts for an integrated permit at our stormwater and wastewater programs. So we'll hear from that team next month. As you saw, the $40 million bond proposal was not successful on December 7th. I was frankly heartened that 57% of the electorate did vote for the bond. It was short of the two thirds majority we needed, but it did show that there is strong support for this effort despite some of the challenges around reappraisal and concern about the school and the high school reconstruction. So we are working to plan next steps and hope to have more for you next month. Let's see, and then last but not least, hit that the annual tree pickup will be this January 10th this year and it will, we are asking people to have the trees out the day, that Monday the 10th. My director's report erroneously said that it would be on the recycling day and the pickup will be on Monday the 10th for everybody. So apologies on that. Anything else? City Engineer Baldwin. Make some significant changes. Actually some personnel, personnel changes, particularly a redescribing positions and setting some higher expectations of those positions to kind of deliver the services that are needed and required for the city. Also, the asset management position will be transitioning out of our department to the CT office. Clerk Treasurer's office. Clerk Treasurer's office. So that we believe there's an opportunity there to add another engineer to support the transportation team in advancing some of the bike facilities, transportation, traffic calming, active transportation issues that council members have found important. So hopefully we'll succeed in that vote on the 20th, but I think it's an important step forward to continue to kind of evolve as the work demands it. Thank you for that. Yeah. All right. I will move forward to item nine, commissioner communications. Here to start, Vice-Chair Neal Ivanko. Oh, I got a little lest. Got my pen. Okay. I think processes for residents to know what information they need. I'm talking in particular about the Overlake Park, top park of the entrance to Overlake Park from Cliff. It's a narrow street. The neighbor cannot get out of his driveway. Even if they expand the driveway, his work truck is too long. I've seen it myself several times. It's incredibly frustrating. And he was told he could request no parking the spot sign. I'm getting texts from other neighbors and I just feel like there has to be a process other than texting me. It's, you know, I need a pay raise after this. I would think it would be a traffic request review by Phillip or Madeline. We've reviewed and would be happy to chat with you about that specific request and options. Okay, that sounds good. Thanks. Yeah. That's one. Another, as you know, BHS just selected architects, engineers for the redesign and reconstruction of Institute Road for the high school. I would love to see, to request, to implore that public works is part of that process in that building a school and not having safe access to the front doors is like, you know, it's a whole community responsibility. That intersection of Institute Road and North Ave. I don't know how many accidents have been there. I don't know if it's just because there are, you know, 16 year olds pulling out of there or other factors because it's not a straight 90 degree, but that disaster needs to be addressed as well as prioritizing bus access to the school and dealing with parking, but really prioritizing multi-mode from the city's point of view as they get to the doors of BHS. So I can answer that if you'd like. I can answer that if you'd like. Yes. So under development review process, we have reviewed the previous project for the school department before there was an identified those contaminants. And so I think we'll continue that process of review as they revise their plans. And there's been significant effort on our part in various disciplines within my team to review that, both Laura as civil, senior civil person, Nicole as the transportation person looking at transportation issues, active transportation issues, and myself and others who have a chance to take a look at it, provide comments and try to shape kind of their, how they've designed their access to their building and their property. So my belief is that we'll continue to follow that and be part of it through that process. Thank you. And then one, a final thing, student engagement. I remember we got something from city council or the mayor's office talking about students on boards and quite honestly, I think it's a fabulous idea, but I also realized this is a privilege. This is a real privilege of time and access. Zoom, we need to, if students are on Zoom, they need to have adequate internet access. And so what I fear would happen is that we get privileged kids, which great, we get kids voices. But if the city is looking for kind of equity in voices, I would like to propose that someone consider the possibility of getting the show on the road. And whoever has a time and going to Burlington High School, meeting with a group of students once a quarter and getting feedback from students then, I think as a much more valuable interaction with students than trying to get students here at dinner time after sports practice, after club, whatever, because I feel like that doesn't deal with some of the inequities that could be present. So I don't know what that possibility could be, but given work day, once a quarter, going into the high school, kind of a prearranged to solicit feedback, especially as we look at the relationship between the city and the new high school, which there's a lot of opinions out there. That's an interesting idea. We have not had recent discussions on the youth on board's piece, which we do need to pick back up. So if there is interest in the commission of exploring a different model other than having one or two youth members on the commission, then I'm certainly open to explore it, especially with public information manager Rob Goulding. We could consider some high school engagement strategy. Thank you. Yeah. That's it. Couple of big ones, but that was it. Thanks. All right, thank you. What's your overview? The one comment I wanted to sort of relate is relating the bond vote. I realize that you're probably disappointed that this nice pot of money isn't available. But one of the things that I realized when I was thinking about it, as also I'm an Inspector of Election, is these kind of votes are a very small portion of the population actually can make a very significant decision. And so looking at the math, there was about a 20% turnout in Burlington, which is about 7,000 people out of a 35,000 registered voters. I'm just rounding numbers. But in order to get two thirds, that's like 4,700 voters, which is really only 13% of the voters, which is a significant, a significantly concerning kind of thing. If 4,700 voters, 13% can actually commit the city to borrowing $40 million, particularly when we're dealing with the, trying to get our feet under us after the pandemic. And you guys are always overloaded with work anyway, and we hear that a lot. And we're trying to figure out what to do with the high school. I just wanted to share with you, I realize that you're disappointed we don't have the matching money to be borrowing. But in fact, it's a big concern that I had looking at the election, and that small of a population. You're totally just that 57% was really 57% of only 7,000 voters, which is something we should all be thinking about, that maybe isn't exactly what we mean when we say two thirds of the voters vote for it. It's two thirds of a small turnout. So this is, it's really a concern that I have that these kind of things shouldn't be done during a, you might have had a better outcome if it was done during election where there was more of a turnout. So that was just a comment that I want to make that relates to the fact that this is capital money, that we all want to have money to do the sidewalks. I've been really psyched about all the repairs and things, but that's maybe something that we should think about. So thank you. Thank you. Commissioner Kennedy. Yeah, so I had a coworker reach out to me about how she could have people look into putting in two more stop signs at the South Union and Adams Street intersection. Because currently it's like, there's no stop signs on South Union. It's just for Adams Street and she lives right there and is worried about, it's pretty hard to make a left there because of the way that the hill and the parking on the side of the street works. And I'm not sure if that's like something, I just don't know how she could do that. So I was wondering if you know. All the practice of any traffic request and then we would evaluate whether or not it meets warrants. My suspicion is that probably doesn't meet warrants but the simple fact that you stop control is followed by usually balanced traffic volumes, but there may be a accident condition that maybe warrants a stop sign, but we need to evaluate both the volume of traffic and also the accident experiences. Is a stop control a means to correct any sort of accident experience that could be occurring there? So I would encourage them to submit the traffic request to Philip or within our process and then we'll evaluate that for looking at those parameters. And I think in terms of process, because I think we get that question a lot, C-Click Fix is an opportunity to let the public know on how to submit one of those. And we have a category transportation and parking improvement requests. There'll be a dropdown. There's an opportunity for folks to describe what they're looking for. For folks who miscategorize our team, our customer service team, we'll still get that to the right person. But Norm gave you a great technical answer. I just wanted to make sure that folks knew a great way to submit those requests. Some folks aren't comfortable with C-Click Fix and you're more than welcome to call us as well. Great, thank you. That's it. Thank you. Christopher Barr. I actually have none. All right. Thank you. All right. Expect back to me then. I recall there was a gentleman who works at that corner of Union and Adams came to a meeting of ours in the recent history, suggesting the same thing from his, the corner office window observing dangerous patterns there. I go through there three to four times a day. It is two blocks from an elementary school and a middle school. Those might be not the first part about my personal travel habits, but the second part about its proximity to the school might be another piece to consider besides from the cut and dry warrants and things. But yeah, I've been meaning to ask like for our occasional series of where are they now? Where's that request now? I know that it was something like, great. Maybe I lost in the shuffle, but we got to sort of close the loop on that one. The engineer Balvin and I will follow up with our staff to understand if there's an update and we can certainly put this new request in and give you an update for next month. Yeah, you're referring to. So maybe Phillip or others then. Yeah, I think it was an extensive queue. It's a entree, yeah, it's one of the, he sits in the corner of the attorney's office right there and just a good view of the patterns. It's deep crossing Adams too. Like there's been days. It's a sharp incline up to Unistreet. Yeah, my son and wife both like simultaneously wiped out. Gone to their office many, many times. To the horror of drivers in the vicinity. Good thing there's a lawyer right there. Good thing it's directly in front of the attorney's office. Yeah. That was a joke. Only slight related on the topic of traffic enforcement. We gather it's certainly policy decisions outside of this room and this body, the reduction in traffic enforcement. And I would just advocate that our responsibilities for a safe environment do not decline with that policy decision. And that perhaps that be part of the conversation when sort of requesting additional help on engineering resources and so forth. Like the city can step up in other ways to meet the traffic calming needs of our built environment if we're not enforcing to the same degree we used to. The lack of police enforcement, you'll see people's behavior getting worse and worse as we move forward. And unfortunately what we do is very limited to reasonable people doing reasonable things and following the rule of law and following all the indications of how we've designed to build the road. So if people are gonna run stop signs and run signals, there's not a lot we can do beyond kind of encourage them to their best interest to follow the rules for reasons. So it's an education, it's engineering enforcement. But we, like you said, we are doing all our best to do our part and maybe even more so now than ever before. Yeah, okay, thank you for that. Yeah. Those conversations, we're asking for resources for this or for that to help with our traffic calming programs. I like your thought, Chair Hogan and would suggest if our reorg proposal, it does get on the agenda tomorrow that calls to counselors about where you think the resources need to be spent to ensure traffic safety would be welcome. Noted. Thank you. All right. With that, I will close out commissioner communications and go to item 10, a German and next meeting date, January 19th. We have a motion. Commissioner Barr, seconded from Vice Chair, O'Neill Vivanko gave a pause. Is there any discussion around that motion? All right, two of votes. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Are adjourned at 820.