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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2002 05-29 Joint ACHD Meridian City Council Special Joint Meeting/Workshop May 29, 2002 The special joint meeting of the Meridian City Council and the Ada County Highway District was called to order at 5:30 P.M. on Wednesday May 29, 2002, by Mayor Robert D. Corrie. Members Present: Mayor Robert Corrie, Tammy de Weerd, Keith Bird, Bill Nary, Cherie McCandless. Staff Present: Gary Smith, Shari Stiles, Steve Siddoway, Mike Worley, Ken Bowers, Bill Nichols, and Will Berg. ACHD Commission Present: David Wynkoop, Sherry Huber, Dave Bivens and Judy Peavey-Derr. ACHD Staff: Terry Little, Larry Sale and Jay Schweitzer. Meridian Development Corporation: Jim Johnson, Clarence Jones, Linda Rupe and Lori Jones. Item 1. Roll-call Attendance: X Tammy de Weerd X Bill Nary X Cherie McCandless X Keith Bird X Mayor Robert Corrie Corrie: I’ll open the joint special workshop meeting between Meridian City Council and Ada County Highway District Commissioners on Wednesday May 29, 2002 at 5:30 P.M. Let the record show that all of the roll call attendants Tammy De Weerd, Cherie McCandless, Bill Nary, Keith Bird and Mayor Robert Corrie, the City is here. Do you need to open yours— Wynkoop: We’re here. For the record, Commissioner Huber, Commissioner Bivens and myself, Dave Wynkoop. Item 2. Adoption of the Agenda: st Corrie: Okay. The agenda tonight is to discuss of Waltman Lane/East 1-Main Street/Central Drive Intersection. Terry, I’ll let you start. st Item 3. Discussion of the Waltman Lane/East 1-Main Street/Central Drive Intersection: Little: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I have talked to both (inaudible) separately about (inaudible) concept to the left and what the ramifications would be of those. We’ll talk about those and where we’re at in the design. We’re about 80% done with Meridian City Council Joint Workshop with Ada County Highway District May 29, 2002 Page 2 of 19 st the design of East 1, down Main Street, I guess. The signs haven’t gone down that far. Meridian, Central, Waltman intersection—let me give you copies for the five council members. I believe the commissioners got these to you. I’d like to show the aerials and point out a few things here. Just the overview of the situation. This is--one thing that came up last time was the issue of connectivity. That’s an important issue. It’s kind of a side issue that I’d like to talk about just for a second. The Landing Subdivision, there’s two stubs coming out over here. The plan is to build a collector here and then have a connection to these two that can get through and out of this area because we’ve got this area off of Linder that has no other outlet. Obviously, (inaudible) they travel north and then over to Franklin, down to Meridian and down to the freeway to reach their destination. There are some issues about a bridge that we backed off of our exaction because we didn’t feel like we had a legal basis. It was a little bit off-site and the developer, it wasn’t actually their property. That doesn’t mean it’s not important to us. It just means we’re going to have to come up to the plate when it gets built. Another issue is, we look at projects like this at times through the project prioritization process. The transportation task force. I think we need this thing to be built but building this connection here is a lot like—we have one out in probably Ada County, northwest Boise or something. Rowe Street—Sloan Street where we’re building a connection through fairly soon to Bogart so the big neighborhood can get out. We’ve done a few of those and have one down on Willow Lane. A lot of people can’t get out on to State Street. In the future, we may build through. So that’s a potential thing that when this gets built—look on your priority list—that project and we get it in the mill or just (inaudible) That’s not something ACHD couldn’t or wouldn’t do. We’re doing that in other places because it is important. It saves congestion up here. It can save congestion up here (inaudible) It’s less driving and all the good other reasons, air quality and interchange and so forth. Another issue was the State’s property down here at the intersection. I did talk to (inaudible) district about that. They think they need that for future roadways so they’re not planning to give that up any time soon. In terms of alternatives, I just started with highway intersections and worked down to what is the freeway that we have been designing and improving in 1993 and is proceeding with. Why not just build a five-way intersection? I want to show you that concept here of just bringing Waltman out, some of this in, (inaudible) do that. You’ve got your list of advantages and disadvantages. The biggest problem is that you have really heavy right turn movement. With this in the way, you can’t do a free right turn, right turn on red. It creates an incredible amount of congestion running that through five different movements that you have to serve. I worked it up to nine lanes, basically. A double left-turn, six through lanes and a right turn lane and it would still level surface out. With a five-way it will really drag the thing out(inaudible) Another alternative is to do like the Boise Avenue, Capital/University Boulevard intersection and do a four-way entry and five-way th exit. In this case, it would be like coming down 9 Street and Capital Boulevard and turning left on—the other—quicker left, I guess. Well, actually, it’s st backwards from that but this would mean you come up East 1, get into this area, and to get out, you’d have to come up here. In order to have this work with Meridian City Council Joint Workshop with Ada County Highway District May 29, 2002 Page 3 of 19 this having this much traffic on it and have full access, you’d have to have it way up here. You couldn’t put it down here like this road we have. If it was here, you’ve got real heavy traffic this way and heavy traffic this way. You need stacking room for turning in. So, you need to come clear up here with this particular movement. That also creates incredible congestion because you have to take this movement. You can’t do just a free right turn. You have to bring them through the signals. It also ends up with level surface out with a nine-lane approach on it. If we could squeeze out seven lanes, we can end up with— versus seven lanes because you do have—the curbs are pretty wide. Beyond that, you’re going into landscaping and then to private property and that in back there. It’s not private property. At least, taking out virtually all the landscaping and the right-of-way. This is another alternative. I’ve talked about that before, I think, (inaudible) that’s dead-ending Meridian Road right here so this becomes a T intersection this way in the future and you could turn in and out here. This becomes the four-way intersection. If you don’t do Meridian, you have to do this. That’s Alternative Three. Congestion level about 95% capacity, maximizing lanes within the curbs. In other words, by just switching what’s a left turn lane to a through lane and so forth and what we have planned, you can get it—this one—implement this alternative. The cost—there would be some increased cost to this thing, obviously, and this is very rough. We haven’t run out exact numbers on this at all. Scheduling that, we’ve got it moved back to public involvement. Businesses along here. We’re concerned about their access (inaudible) down like this and get in. (inaudible) He’s got a drive-way there. He says he could work out an access up in here. So, you know, there’s some issues and public involvement would take time. (inaudible) right-of-way take this thing (inaudible) challenging. Three A kind of deals with that somewhat. Let’s go on Three A which is the—instead of using the cul-de-sac,(inaudible) allow Meridian traffic to proceed down here but they’d have to make a right (inaudible) they’d be forced out of this area. So from this (inaudible) to get to this area, go down Meridian and you can get there from here, you’re just going to make this movement or this movement. So, Meridian traffic would all still be up here. You wouldn’t have to build a cul-de-sac because it’s not dead-ended. They could go, they could get out (inaudible) (inaudible) that one a little less than the other—does run you around through this area throughout Meridian. You’d have more traffic out here st on East 1 that doesn’t need to be out there. Some impairment, obviously, (inaudible) access. Okay, we need to build an east-bound approach lane on Corporate, west of Main. Right now, we have this plan—so let’s see how does it go—this is kind of a free right turn so it changes that plan a little bit. We need an extra lane on here because you’re bringing all this traffic around. Right now, it’s just a left and a through. You really, obviously, need a right lane to serve this heavy traffic. Other than that, (inaudible) kicking around what was planned as a left-turn lane and making it a through lane and that sort of thing. Okay. Alternative Four is making a four-way intersection with Meridian being one leg of it—actually two legs of it, I guess. Instead of having this little connector, this would be full traffic arterial, so you’d need the loop up here in order to build that to full access, have a left turn lane and all those guys that come up here that Meridian City Council Joint Workshop with Ada County Highway District May 29, 2002 Page 4 of 19 want to go back into this area as it develops (inaudible). We estimated, based on these buildings and the square footage area, about $1.4 million for that and that doesn’t include that property damage—business damage—cost which is challenging to work with. Ironically, this is the same owner as— McCandless: --as on Maple Grove. Little: Maple Grove. McCandless: I had that feeling they were going to be. Little: Park and Ride, which we had to really do some play with Maple Grove to deal with a mini-storage there. The same guy, Dick— De Weerd: Phillips. Little: Phillips, yes. That’s the (inaudible) you can still do the free right turn here so this works pretty well congestion-wise. About 100% capacity but major additional cost is –we brought in Waltman to Meridian through the front portion of (inaudible). Other than that, this worked pretty well and then, basically, what we had already designed. (inaudible) This is Alternative Five. It’s why not just straighten, central out even Waltman. This takes part of McDonald’s parking lot here. I don’t need to say too much about how expensive that is, taking their parking and (inaudible) that kind of thing. What this allows you to do is move Meridian over and get this back far enough that this could work. Now, if you say let’s leave it on the central alignment, move this thing up here, then you’re through studio, obviously, (inaudible) mini-storage. Get this far enough back to make it work. A four-way intersection works pretty well, congestion wise. Also have business (inaudible) along with the cost of land and improvements and so forth there. The final alternative is the one that (inaudible) almost 80%. It’s the one we came up with in 1993. It’s like the three way signal, basically. It’s a four- way intersection but a three way signal. The way that works is get into this area, you can’t turn left here. You go up and around like that. To get out of this area, you go make a right turn. It provides a free right turn here (inaudible) traffic movement. It’s best congestion wise and traffic movement wise but it does require, traffic flow wise, requires extra mileage getting in here. One of the things about this, in the future is, this is super heavier than any of them that get on this free right turn are going to eventually need an extra lane all the way across the structure to handle it because we’re looking at ½ to 2/3 capacity that lane be used up by this. There are a lot of gaps in this intersection. Either going or these are going. This would back up. This intersection would flow great except this would back up. It would be a (inaudible) efficiently because there would always be traffic (inaudible)down here. We have any inefficiencies in this intersection affecting down here, you’ll be able to maximize this on ramp traffic here. Some people try and (inaudible) better alternative there. That would have a need in the future for the extra lane across the interstate. That’s true of a couple of other Meridian City Council Joint Workshop with Ada County Highway District May 29, 2002 Page 5 of 19 alternatives too. Or just have to build this a lot bigger. (inaudible) That’s just an overview of what our staff has come up with based on the studies that we’ve done. We’ve got a couple of five-way intersections. (inaudible)for thirty six. We looked at fifteen alternatives there with (inaudible) deal on that one. We looked at this one that we did. Fairview and Curtis, we spent a year and spent over $30,000 on concepts on that intersection because it was so close to the freeway. It was just a difficult one. Also State and Glenwood. We looked at overpasses and things like that. Get into overpasses (inaudible) anything but overpasses. But it costs a lot of money and you have to restrict access. You know, these guys that have driveways here it takes up the (inaudible) and really messes up your access (inaudible) Free flowing traffic, you’re mixing freeway traffic, essentially, with stop and go, normal city traffic. It’s turbulent and get more access (inaudible) Anyway, I’ll open for questions or if you just want to discuss it. That’s my presentation. Corrie: Out of all those alternatives, Terry, what do you think is the best? Little: Well, from a traffic flow standpoint, I favor this. The cost end of it. This goes to two. One of the disadvantages, this property has less potential for development or less chance of development because you have to go around the block to get there, essentially. That’s what you have some place like downtown Boise, where you—Westpark Center Bridge where now from Park Boulevard and M-K Drive that’s made one-way, you’ve got to go around the block. So, from that stand—that’s the main disadvantage there. The second one, B, I guess. That was unacceptable probably—(inaudible) either do that kind of thing or this and— okay (inaudible) do on that alignment say like that, you would definitely take out that studio and at least a building here, probably, to even think about accommodating that kind of thing in leaving Central in place. That’s the worst thing we could think about. Let’s figure out how to (inaudible) alone with the cost of (inaudible) but those are—anything you do affects this area here. It gives you full access (inaudible). Corrie: Does that show that center going underneath? Little: No. That’s just realigned. That’s why I moved back. None of these are anything grade separated. They’re all at three. When you start talking about grade separating and the one and a half millions, you know, that goes pretty fast if you’re into a $3 million structure. Before you know it, it takes up your whole (inaudible) De Weerd: That’s alternative five? Little: This one is alternative five, yes. This was the realignment with Waltman. A few things—if you get this back far enough so you can have a left turn lane (inaudible). This would have to be signalized under this option. (inaudible) you Meridian City Council Joint Workshop with Ada County Highway District May 29, 2002 Page 6 of 19 come down there they’d need to have a—this would be such a heavy movement, you’d have to signalize that so they can do that. Nary: Mr. Mayor? Corrie: Mr. Nary. Nary: Terry, since I wasn’t here in 1993, could you give me 30 seconds of why it wasn’t a necessity and just capacity. That this is now seen as a need to meet increasing capacity. Is that the lingo? Little: Yes. The five-way situation is something we can do that wouldn’t work with any kind of reasonable grantors of capacity. (inaudible amongst Council) Little: The reason that it went before is there was no traffic on Waltman Lane except for a few residents and that storage lot (inaudible) So we were able to—at the time we signalized this, we were able to allow an access really close to the storage, essentially, just cheating to even get one car stored there. As this developed, we could see, well, we can’t have turns until you’re way up here somewhere. If you allow a five-way intersection, the capacity falls apart because with the four-way intersection, these guys can share the green time and they can share the green time. They overlap. The fifth way comes in there and you can’t share with anybody. It adds a whole new level of congestion and, basically, makes your intersection break down. Then also, we’re trying to get this, deal with this heavy right turn. That falls apart if you have this (inaudible) These guys have to wait. Make two right turn lanes and then turn them on a green light, that—we knew this wasn’t going to work and so that was the reason we said we’d better figure out how to tie these in. At that time, they said well, maybe we make a collector like this. Some of these buildings already existed even at that time. That’s what precipitated it. McCandless: Mr. Mayor? Corrie: Mrs. McCandless. McCandless: Terry, could you put Alternative Four up there? Is Meridian a two- way there? Little: Yes. Meridian stays, basically, intact. Just eliminate this thing—can actually move up here (inaudible) McCandless: If you wanted to go to Waltman, you turn right off of Meridian? Little: Yes. Meridian City Council Joint Workshop with Ada County Highway District May 29, 2002 Page 7 of 19 McCandless: And how much of the storage area in there would that take out? Little: Basically, those three buildings. That was where it (inaudible) (inaudible amongst Council) Bivens: They were using a few figures – Nary: Terry, could I just discuss that business damages just for a second? It’s something that is quite an unknown so I don’t want to be crying that the sky is falling but the bottom line now that as we read that the statute could be interpreted by a court and this is reasonable interpretation not just some attorney way out there, is we’d be, basically, paying knowing that the property taken and the buildings but basically, the diminution and value to the remainder of the site itself. When you add that component in, the risk is, you’re buying, potentially, the whole operation. If you use an income stream type of appraisal, the appraisers get those numbers up just frighteningly high. We have a, and I believe even the State Transportation Department have been very reluctant to try to test out that new statute. So anytime we’re looking at buying out a major business now, we feel we owe it to the taxpayers of Ada County that we serve, to be extremely cautious about anything other than a negotiated property situation. This particular property owner was talking some extraordinarily large numbers on Maple Grove until we came to a point where we were able to put it through in a place that everybody agreed to. Now it still cost a lot of money but, at least, we had the certainty of knowing what it was going to cost us. If we tried to force something like this, at this point, we think we would lose potential control of our budget. Bivens: Mr. Mayor? I guess one more factor that we do have partially designed, that number six, Alternative Number Six, and take a look at the possibility of south of the current intersection, making a right in, right out connection there and possibly even—what triggered my thought was what we’re talking about on Maple Grove/Chinden, that double light in there to help that so that would reduce—in other words you could hook it in. If you had to, possibly, from where the intersection—I don’t know what that road is up above that goes there between to the north of the—that’s it. That’s the one. Yes. That’s Corporate. From that point down, a person could even make that a one-way going south. I don’t know. I’m just throwing out thoughts and ideas that you probably have already run through them. It would, I think, probably be much less costly if you could do that. Right in, right out with a double light or something. Little: What about left? (inaudible) Bivens: You’d have to make the loop. Meridian City Council Joint Workshop with Ada County Highway District May 29, 2002 Page 8 of 19 Little: (inaudible) left in, is you come off that freeway, you’re merging across three lanes of traffic. Bivens: Oh, yes. You couldn’t do that. Little: We have the same problem at Jackson’s over on Eagle Road. Yes. The right in, right out is possible but it wouldn’t benefit because it’s these guys they want to attract, just coming off the freeway. So make this one-way, you accomplish the same thing you do here, really, only these guys couldn’t turn in. They’d have to do that kind of thing. This allows you to get in here this way or northbound this way to get out this way or like that to go out. Bird: Mr. Mayor? Corrie: Mr. Bird. Bird: Terry, on that one, you say that right there, the one that hooks back to Waltman, you’re going to have a left across there? Little: Yes. Bird: Boy, I can see some real jam up there when you’re going down Meridian Road. You’ll be back out in the middle of Main Street there and half way to the freeway. Little: We did do an analysis on that. The reason that we’re proposing it here is you only have heavy traffic this way. I mean, this is virtually zero going northbound. You only have a gap in one lane to get across. It will be heavy. You’ve got a good point there. That’s a very, very heavy (inaudible) (inaudible) Bird: Terry, have you looked at any alternatives of going across Corporate and coming down out by the road going across the road and down to Waltman there? Little: Going around? Bird: Yes. Around and come back down to Waltman. Get your, I think, your number one alternative can show it. Number one would show, yes. Then those streets could actually be moved and subbed in if you brought Corporate across. I know it would be tough for Waltman but with the storage and stuff in there, you’re not going to have the development in there or the traffic you will with this other. I think the more turn-offs and turn-ons that you have close to that intersection is a real problem. Especially, if you’re going across traffic. If you’re turning left or turning right across the traffic, I think we’re asking for a real bottleneck. Meridian City Council Joint Workshop with Ada County Highway District May 29, 2002 Page 9 of 19 (discussion amongst Council) Bird: Corporate and come down. We’ve already got an easement through the old Waltman place to the canal and then all we’d have to do is go down here and hit Waltman. Then these sub streets could be brought out and matched up and brought out and they could all come through that way. That gives us a half mile or mile away from that main jumbled up intersection. And you’re only talking about a half mile of Waltman that has to go back and do that. The rest of it, it’s just as short for them to turn there and come up and head over to Corporate as it is to come down to Waltman and jockey around. Little: How would they get them out (inaudible)? Bird: They would come up to Corporate. Take Corporate on through and you’re going to have to signalize Corporate at both places anyway on both Main and Meridian. Take Corporate on through and down to the west and down to Waltman. Little: What would you have over here? Bird: I’d leave it just like it is. Leave it alone. Just take that off. Take Waltman and stop it right there. Little: You’d still leave this open for a right turn in, out? Bird: I’d take that out. I’d close it off. Little: (inaudible) Make their main access out— Bird: They have to come out and around. That’s the least of the traffic flow, I believe. Corrie: So they’d come down here? Bird: They would come down and come up— Corrie: Go to the mini storage and go north? Bird: Go north up to—yes— (inaudible amongst Council) McCandless: Mr. Mayor? What is this? Is there a building or business there? Bird: Which one? Meridian City Council Joint Workshop with Ada County Highway District May 29, 2002 Page 10 of 19 Bird: That’s the old Waltman place right there. McCandless: Are there businesses or anything there? Bird: No. Trout’s up here, the Business Park and they could all come down into that. Corrie: So you could go for something there, take that off. Bird: Well, actually, they’ve got an easement already coming down through here to the canal. Cherie, where does that hit? It’s just north of the old Waltman place. Can you show on the map there where that is? On the other one on East st 1? McCandless: That’s the one where we made the condition that they build a bridge that (inaudible) Bird: Show them where that would come, Cherie, from Corporate. To me, this would be the least confusion at that—yes, right through there. Bivens: That’s further down that what we were talking about. Little: It could. (inaudible) Bivens: That part of every homeowner (inaudible) Waltman and all (inaudible) we object to is that property owner on the east end of Waltman doesn’t get easy access (inaudible) That’s part of the purpose of (inaudible) the intersection. (inaudible) Bird: They what? Little: They want hotels there. They say nobody will talk to them with that access. That’s— Bird: I disagree. Little: --(inaudible) traffic movement. What you’re doing is, basically, this thing only you’re moving it out here. Bird: Well, let me tell you something. If you’re going to come through there to make a left hand turn across that deal, that’s worse for traffic to get to a hotel or a motel than to go around. I mean, you go to the big cities, a lot of times you have to go around behind to get into a motel or something. I don’t see anything wrong Meridian City Council Joint Workshop with Ada County Highway District May 29, 2002 Page 11 of 19 with it and the least confusion we can have at that corner, the better off we are. It’s a nightmare right now. Nary: Mr. Mayor. I understand what the point they’re saying that trying to develop that eastside property but looping around the block and coming back up that road can’t—I mean, I guess big picture wise—the balance between that change instead of proceeding all the way down Waltman, or down Corporate to Waltman there versus all the traffic change that we’re trying to make in that intersection with these other alternatives. The balance of the two, I think Councilman Bird suggested, is probably better. They’re both going to be— they’re both jumble to people. They’re both going to be confusing to people for a while. They both have some good and bad things but we intend that eventually we were going to extend that road anyway, then it seems like we’re spending a lot of money and effort to sort of band-aid an intersection and it’s still going to be a problem. It has some very goofy traffic patterns left once we’re done when you can probably solve it with the other alternative of just (inaudible) down on something we’re going to do anyway and pushing the traffic that direction and not making that intersection better than it is now. De Weerd: Mr. Mayor? Corrie: Mrs. De Weerd. De Weerd: Also, if you did the right in, right out after the Central Park, or before it, like Commissioner Bivens was suggesting, that can help alleviate some of it. It does give you an easier way if you’re coming from the north and if you want to get out on to the highway. That would be a concession, per se. Little: Have a right in, right out down here on Meridian or up on north of Central? De Weerd: North of Central. Little: Right in there. Either—(inaudible) De Weerd: Kind of where Waltman would end, anyway, before it curves around and goes to the west. If you put a right in, right out there. I don’t know. I’m definitely not a traffic engineer. Just a (inaudible). Nary: So, what you’re suggesting, instead of closing off Waltman as Steve suggested, making that Waltman entrance, that a right in, right out. De Weerd: Yes. Bird: The existing one? Nary: The existing one. Meridian City Council Joint Workshop with Ada County Highway District May 29, 2002 Page 12 of 19 Bird: Oh, I would have no problem with that. But I think your main one but your problem is, if somebody is coming down from the freeway, they’re going to go down to Corporate anyway, have to turn and come back. It would be just as fast to right around Corporate to Waltman and back in. I have no problem with the right in, right out on Waltman but I think extending Corporate down is the best solution for traffic flow De Weerd: I do too. That was just also in addition to that. Bird: The only problem we’ve got is these people are about—throw up your—is that Alternative Six that you’ve got about 80 degree? They’ve got that about 80 percent designed. I don’t know what 80 percent is dollar volume, how many dollars. Little: (inaudible)$140,000 or $170,000. Something like that. De Weerd: (inaudible) Bird: Well, no, I know it’s design. Little: On this one, (inaudible) right turn in, out, I think people coming out there caddy-corner or cross-wise to get in the left turn lane, you’ve go shorter distance. We really need something like this just to give them a right turn in out. If you have this flowing like both directions (inaudible). Bird: But you can’t turn left off of that, Terry, down to Waltman or you’ll have traffic. I mean to tell you, you’ll have traffic backed up to the freeway. You cannot turn left—you can’t turn left on that until you get to Corporate. There should be no left hand turns until you get to Corporate off that. McCandless: I agree. Bird: That’s why I think that—I don’t know how much more it’ll cost to go to Corporate. You’ve got a bridge to go across there at the little creek and stuff and go down to Waltman. I have no problem with the right in and right out. I just think if you have a left hand turn off of Meridian Road before Corporate, we’re going to stack traffic up horribly. A lot worse than it’s already stacked up. Bivens: I don’t see any other way but take it up to Corporate. Bird: I think that you and Tammy’s idea to come over to Corporate and then have them leave it like it is, right in, right out. De Weerd: Well, not like it is. Just where Waltman goes— Meridian City Council Joint Workshop with Ada County Highway District May 29, 2002 Page 13 of 19 Bird: I mean the existing Waltman. Bivens: I think we’re going to see—I think Terry already mentioned it. I don’t know which side that they’ll put that additional lane or two on there. But that’s going to have to be widened at Overland sooner or later. Corrie: Steve. Siddoway: (inaudible) we have the (inaudible) area of Alternative Four but instead of making this connection, make the connection that’s on six that comes over here and that was right in, right out only but the (inaudible) down Corporate, in that way. That seems to (inaudible). Everyone is saying it gets—the problem with this one is it works great for traffic movement. It’s got two-way everywhere, it get rid of the Waltman stuff. The problem is this land acquisition that’s necessary for that street. What if instead of that street, you had that street but with the remainder of this configuration? Bird: And it’s only going to be right in and right out? Siddoway: --only because then as people come in off of—the road would come in around here and they get to this (inaudible) there’s a barrier. There is no left turn. It’s right in or right out off of Waltman here. The main access would still be across Corporate down. That would be the main access for the (inaudible) It would still allow the local access off of there with the right in and right out without having to totally close off and still allow the rest of it to function as two-way. Bird: What—yes, but Steve, why not leave the existing Waltman as it is if we’re going to go across Corporate and come down instead of bring it up and acquire more land. Even if you’re going to acquire that, you’re getting pretty close to the studio on that one set-up, aren’t you? Siddoway: It’s fairly close. (inaudible) We’d still ask for the right in, right out. Bird: Yes. I think the solution, though, is to get Corporate to go over and come down. And then that picks up your—then you can also pick your stub streets off of the subdivision there and from the Corporate Park. Siddoway: I think, basically, if I understand what everybody is saying, essentially, all we’re doing is taking Alternative Six, moving the right in right out to Waltman Lane. They’ve already worked this issue out. Move that over and then we just have to work on the extension of Waltman Lane but the east side gets out to Main Street and Meridian Road on a right out. They can make a left down Main Street here— Bird: That’s the problem, though. You cannot get across that traffic. You cannot get across that traffic. It’s right in and you’d better turn right on Main Street Meridian City Council Joint Workshop with Ada County Highway District May 29, 2002 Page 14 of 19 because you’re not going to get across to turn left. I’ll tell you, if you put Corporate Park across there, I’ll bet once you’ve got that done, 90 percent of your traffic will go down to Corporate and go across. Especially, if we signalize Corporate. Little: You can live with that as a right turn, right out there. I mean— Bird: That one you can, yes. (inaudible) Little: This is still the shortest way in here instead of going like that. This is going to be signalized, make a left turn, come down here in this area. That’s another way in and out. You just need an island down the middle here so you don’t have people trying to turn left in. That’s the—or left out. Bivens: Would you leave that Corporate south one-way so that people could make the loop and get into the convenient stores there? Corrie: Just one-way south would sure take care of your north traffic. Bird: Just one-way from Corporate to Main? Bivens: Yes. Then you’d have a right in, right out on that one. That way they can still make a left and get back to the north. Bird: That would sure save a lot of traffic back-up. Bivens: Corporate would be between Main and Meridian would be two-way. Bird: Yes, that would be. Bivens: That would help. That would give you some— Little: Another thing (inaudible) go across the front of that studio property, too, so they’ve got the access as well. It’s the same effect as this (inaudible) De Weerd: Mr. Mayor? Corrie: Miss De Weerd. De Weerd: We have the MDC here. Do they have a representative who would like to comment? Johnson: Well, Tammy, no we don’t. We don’t (inaudible) The one thing that has been considered is (inaudible) Meridian City Council Joint Workshop with Ada County Highway District May 29, 2002 Page 15 of 19 (inaudible amongst Council) Bird: I think that— ***End of Side One*** Bird: --but—dollars. I think that that’s something that has to be done, is to take that on down and—I think it will help alleviate a whole bunch of the traffic at that intersection right now. Corrie: Steve. Siddoway: Do you like the—(inaudible) Alternative Four and then which allows for the two-way movement on Meridian Road and it allows for a left turn from the freeway exit onto Meridian Road. It keeps that Waltman Lane a right in, right out. What do you think of that? Bird: Alternative Four? I don’t— Siddoway: If you were to change that Alternative Four with the modifying that sub street from Waltman. Bird: And leaving the sub street as it is. As is Alternative Four shows like that right there. Siddoway: Yes. (inaudible) Bird: No. No. I’ve got Alternative (inaudible) You’ve got to bring that down here. You can’t go through that property. We can build that road to Waltman and Corporate for you’re going to pay for that property. st Siddoway: What I’m saying is (inaudible) access—the way it works for East 1 and Meridian, if you (inaudible) the way that Waltman cuts through the properties at the storage units. Bird: Steve, I—you think about this new idea of making—from Corporate to the intersection, making Meridian southbound only. No left hand turn. You get away from the congestion at the freeway coming down. You shoot it through, they go to Corporate, which will be signalized, and then you turn left and you go back to your two-way streets. I think you’re going to solve a lot of the congestion if—and then by bringing Corporate on down from Waltman out to Corporate, a lot of people won’t have to even mess with that intersection. I think—I don’t care where they put that on and off, Steve, you know, the short one. This one is not feasible. We know that. It’s too expensive. That would be my suggestion. Do you want to keep Meridian two-way all the way? Meridian City Council Joint Workshop with Ada County Highway District May 29, 2002 Page 16 of 19 Siddoway: Yes. Bird: I don’t have a problem as long as you don’t have any left hand turns but you’re getting a left turn right there. You’re getting a left hand turn at the intersection just like you do now and you come off that freeway—I don’t know how many of you guys drive that but when you come off that freeway, the first thing you do is start just shooting across to get in that left hand turn if you’re going to get Meridian Street. I don’t know if there are a lot of accidents there but I see there’s a possibility of causing a lot of accidents on that. So, I think if you eliminate that left hand turn and make that a one-way and go down and make your left hand turn down at Corporate, that gives them another three quarters of mile to get from lane to lane to lane so they can make their left hand turn. I think you’re going to help the traffic flow. I mean—and I’m far from a traffic expert. I just—common sense just tells me that. Corrie: Shari, (inaudible) stand up to the mike, would you? It’s hard for us to hear. Thank you. Stiles: Mr. Mayor. Council. One disadvantage I see to the one-way is that the businesses that have just been approved, all their drive-thrus and everything, I think you’d have to look at the configurations there and see how a one-way configuration is going to affect them. They may have the same—claim the same cost affecting their businesses due to the fact that their customers are going to be limited on how they can access and how they can exit the site. I do agree with Keith that that Waltman Lane does need to be connected via the Gode property now. But if there’s not some kind of secondary access, then public safety is going to be affected because it’s a one-way. There’s only one-way in, one-way out. And Kenny doesn’t like that. I don’t know how else we’d do it. I was wondering if this is a short-term solution that you’re proposing. Is this a long-term solution depending that looking at the ultimate build-out of that area? If you come from Waltman Lane in some kind of configuration like that, if you have any access from Waltman Lane back directly onto Meridian Road, it’s going to be heavily impacted too. It’s going to be to the point where you’re going to need some kind of signalization there even because there’s a lot of empty ground out there and it’s not going to be residential. It’s likely to be very commercialized down there if they can ever get there. That’s always been our concern is how we can get another connector in the (inaudible) what’s there and allow in and out for public safety because it’s eventually going to be a dead-end along entire Waltman Street. Greenhead is not going to help them much either because it’s such a journey to even find that street. Most people, unless they’re right next to it, are not going to take Greenhead or the other road. Yes, I don’t know how the one-way would work but I think if you have that Waltman Lane coming out too close to that intersection, it’s going to be backed up all the way and it’s going to have to be signalized. Meridian City Council Joint Workshop with Ada County Highway District May 29, 2002 Page 17 of 19 Bird: Mr. Mayor? Corrie: Mr. Bird. Bird: Shari, I think if you’ll think about it, leaving that one-way south from Corporate, it’s not going to—right now getting across in from a left hand turn between the intersection and Corporate is a nightmare. All you have to do is go down, turn left, come across Corporate and turn south. You’re all in one lane and you can get into any one of those businesses probably better. And to get out, you can either go out and turn right on Main Street or you can come out and turn south one-way on Meridian Street and you just make a loop. I think that safety-wise, I’d sooner see them turn up there at Corporate with an intersection where you’ve got a lighted turn and come across and come down. That’s something to think about. I doubt it’ll damage the businesses. Stiles: Well, then the people from the freeway, their first instinct is going to be, if they want to go to KFC or any of those businesses in there, they want to go to st turn right on East 1 Street. Bird: Yes. That’s natural. That’s right. Stiles: But that’s going to be a mistake because that’s going to be a big problem with the congestion there even. I mean, we pretty much can’t even access— have you ever tried getting across that street any time of day? Bird: Let me throw something out. Let’s make it from the intersection on Main down to Corporate one-way north. (inaudible amongst Council) De Weerd: And we name it the Keith Bird Memorial Circuit. Wynkoop: Mr. Mayor? Corrie: Mr. Wynkoop. Wynkoop: Mr. Mayor, I suspect that you have another meeting that is about ready to start and so I have a couple of things just to maybe suggest to try to wrap this up. One is appreciation again to Terry and our staff for coming out here and presenting these alternatives. This is a very complex intersection. There are a whole lot of competing factors. There’s not going to be any one perfect solution. What you’re doing is balancing and trying to achieve the best balance you can. I would suggest after looking at these alternatives, if Meridian as a City has a suggestion for us as the Highway District that you all can agree on, I think we would have to take a very hard look at it and it would give us something to consider and chew on. We’re 140-170,000 on design or wherever Meridian City Council Joint Workshop with Ada County Highway District May 29, 2002 Page 18 of 19 we are now and that has to be something considered but if the City has a better way to do this, I think we’re very interested in it. Let me just kind of conclude with one remark because I’ve worked with Terry now for a little over ten years. He has been doing this for 30 and I will suggest, respectfully—I have told him he’s absolutely crazy about four or five times on different intersections if not more and once they actually got up and running, it kind of startled me that they actually seemed to work pretty well. He’s been at this a long time and he has some pretty good suggestions and I appreciate him taking the time at looking at some alternatives but at the end of the day, I think we want to give some pretty good definites to somebody who that’s their profession. If he or Kent get started doing legal work, I get a little ticked at them but likewise, I give them a pretty good rope there when it comes to some of these traffic engineering things. I’ve found in the past that if they had designed it the way I thought they should, then that would have been a big mistake. Corrie: I agree. Council, I think that’s pretty good advice even if it’s coming from an attorney. So maybe we can get together again and the Council can see where we want to go and look at number six, there, that you were talking about. De Weerd: Mr. Mayor? Corrie: Mrs. De Weerd. De Weerd: It might be appropriate that we have this on our workshop agenda in June. I realize I won’t be there but that way it gives the MDC a chance to look at the options and the pros and cons and give staff time to maybe ask Terry a few more questions with some of their ideas and we can maybe have a chance to mull it over then. Corrie: We could even have the MDC up there and kind of help us on that workshop as well. Okay. Nary: Would that timing be okay? Would that timing be all right? Stiles: I was just going to ask that on the design. Do we have that on hold? Would waiting until mid-June cause what kind of delays because assuming there’s going to have to be some modification? Little: We’re a couple of years away on the south intersection so I don’t think it hurts to hold off on that. (inaudible) a couple of plots that you know—a right turn in out is liveable, you know, that something that we weren’t hearing from some of the input we’ve had from the property owners standpoint and they help us to balance and there may be some alternatives to spring out of that. So, I would like to look a little more at a couple of thoughts you had. One-way or two-way, right turn in out. See if we could make that intersection work. We want it to be the least confusing and most functional too. Meridian City Council Joint Workshop with Ada County Highway District May 29, 2002 Page 19 of 19 Bird: I’d like to see Corporate at least priced out and see what it would take to bring Corporate over. Johnson: It’s a lot cheaper to plan it before it’s built than to change it after. Corrie: Yes, Larry. Sale: One comment. One of the deciding (inaudible) everyone wanted to make sure we’d have access to those properties on the east end and while I (inaudible) Corrie: I think they’ve got it. Okay. With that, I’ll entertain a motion to adjourn to close the special joint workshop. Bird: I so move. McCandless: Second. Corrie: All those in favor say aye. MOTION CARRIED Corrie: We’re in adjournment. MEETING ADJOURNED AT 6:40 p.m. (TAPE ON FILE OF THESE PROCEEDINGS) APPROVED: / / ROBERT D. CORRIE, MAYOR DATE APPROVED ATTESTED: WILLIAM G. BERG, JR., CITY CLERK