HomeMy WebLinkAbout2008 02-19 PreMeridian City Pre-Council Meeting February 19, 2008
The Meridian City Council meeting was called to order at 5:30 P.M. on Tuesday,
February 19, 2008 by Vice-President Councilman David Zaremba.
Members Present: Keith Bird, David Zaremba, Mayor Tammy de Weerd and Joe
Borton.
Members Absent: Charlie Rountree (arrived late) and Mayor De Weerd (arrived
late).
Staff Present: Bill Nary, Matt Ellsworth, Anna Canning, Jaycee Holman.
Item 1. Roll-call Attendance.:
Roll call.
X David Zaremba X Joe Borton
O Charlie Rountree X Keith Bird
O Mayor Tammy de Weerd
Item 2. Adoption of the Agenda:
Bird: Mr. Vice President.
Zaremba: Mr. Bird.
Bird: I move we adopt the agenda as published.
Borton: Second.
Zaremba: It has been moved and seconded to adopt the agenda. All those in
favor say aye.
THREE AYES. ONE ABSENT. MOTION CARRIED.
Zaremba: I would note for the record as I hesitate the Mayor is joining us and
also Council President Rountree is joining us. I will turn the meeting over to
Council President Rountree.
Item 3. ACHD's Transportation and Land Use Integration Plan with
Matt Ellsworth & Katie Levihn:
Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting
February 19, 2008
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Rountree: Thank you for getting us started.. Sorry. I realize we adopted the
agenda, so the third item is on the agenda. Katie, ACRD Transportation and
Land Use Integration Plan.
Levihn: Hello Mayor De Weerd, Council President Rountree and all of the
Council, it is good to see you again. We are here to tell you about the two days
of workshops that we have held with your staff and first of all I want to say it was
really a pleasure to work with them. Matt and Anna organized quite a variety of
people from all of your services to come and join us. We had wonderful input,
very good discussions and I am hoping that you will be relatively pleased with the
results. I do want to say and give you a little bit of background. We started the
workshops. We have had our two day workshop with the City of Boise. We have
had the two days with you. We had our one day with Kuna. Tomorrow we have
the day with Ada County and then next week on Monday, Tuesday and
Wednesday we have Eagle, Star and Garden City, at which point will have been
through all seven jurisdictions. I so far have been pleasantly surprised that the
vision across the Valley seems to be relatively consistent, which makes me very
hopeful, but I can't promise you when we will be done with this process. We will
need to take all seven jurisdictions, layout the maps, fhe typologies, the major
street corridors and see where there are perhaps areas to be resolved between
the jurisdictions. That may take a little bit of time if they are such areas and then
we would consolidate everything, present it to ACRD Commission and go out for
public comment at that point and time. But, we would be hopefully very close to
being resolved on all of those issues. As you, I think, understand, especially the
variable level of service areas that are being discussed feed into that, equipped
public facilities ordinance work that is being done under Blue Print. I attended
that consortion meeting on Friday as did you. It was a good meeting. I think we
are actually on the whole making some progress as a region - so that this work
has to be done, the level of service adopted, at least finalized, not necessarily
adopted by everybody before the APF (inaudible) can be finished. A couple of
other products that will come out of this that you will see somewhat today, but not
in total would be on the typology maps which you all received a copy of are some
dotted lines for collector recommendations for collectors. Those are approximate
alignments. We know that a lot of that will be gotten through the development
process, but to indicate where additional connectivity needs to be in place and
then once all of that is completed.., there will be a proposed corridor preservation
map produced for Ada County Highway District that would tie in with everything
here. So with that introduction, I think we are ready. I would like to introduce
Andy Mortensen, who is our lead consultant from our consultant group that also
consisted of Dowling Associates, a modeling expert from the Bay Area and
Cladding Jackson, of course, from the east coast who have been working
through this. We will let him go through a PowerPoint presentation shortly telling
you just some of the basics and where we have been and then we would really
be interested in your comments and of course, if you don't feed them all back
today that is okay. Overtime will do as well.
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February 19, 2008
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Mortensen.: I appreciate the opportunity to present here. Can you all hear me? I
have got a number of slides, some of which I am going to quickly go through and
can certainly backtrack and answer questions that you may have related to
those, but I wanted to facilitate the discussion based on a short historic what are
we doing with this transportation land use integration plan effort and what does
that mean to fhe City of Meridian? Spend more time talking about the results of
the two day workshop that we held with your staff to go over the real guts and
material of this planning effort, but it does need some backdrop. So I do have
some backdrop slides, some historic context and would like to quickly go through
those and you are free to interrupt me at any point and time with questions along
the way. With that I will get started. So, why are we doing this and why do we
change our street designs? There were a number of major factors that were kind
of the underpinnings of why we got started in this study for the Highway District.
In essence, also for the cities and county within the community and that is
making streets more functional and safe for all users; expanding street solutions
available to better fit community comprehensive land use plans and emerging
land developments and articulate goals in an approach to residents and
stakeholders about what does it mean to think about street design and land use
together and then finally setting the parameters and standards for final livable
street designs. Street design and land use -what does that mean? It is a host
of questions. We are going to try and distill that. Streets should and often do
look different in different land use context. We have got some pictures here of
various places throughout the Valley where we have remarkably different types
and intensity of land use and in many cases different kinds of street profiles that
sometimes serve those land uses very effectively, sometimes not and that is kind
of the underpinning of our approach is how can we better provide land use
context sensitive livable street designs. Just a quick form and function graphic
here on the why access in ranging from multi-modal, more street focused and
then high capacity of vehicle range in transportation services are going to change
dramatically whether you are in an urban, suburban or ex-urban or rural area.
Typically we see much more intensified multi-modal solutions in more urban
context and less so in the ex-urban or rural area. Some of the framing or
reframing key transportation conventions that we talked about in major efforts
determining functional classification of the street and highway system, then
establishing urban design parameters around which we then finally fit those
design elements to revisions to our street design standards and with that back at
the functional classification level, it is important that we have a very well defined
and meaningful and logical hierarchy of functional classification for our streets
that have land use context. Then in establishing design parameters, we look at
the design of the traffic and the design of speed.. The role of the regional model
helps us understand what the traffic profile is on various areas and facilities,
better understanding of travel patterns and their trip types and the vehicle types
that are traveling those corridors defining the land use context and the network in
mode choice decisions that are desired or resulting in those areas and then
looking at various ways in which we can simulate traffic to better understand that;
but then also looking at design speed. What is the target speed? In the context
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February 19, 2008
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at different facilities, local streets are remarkably different than the higher speed
arterials and state highways and freeways. Looking at design speed ranges -
what kind of minimums and maximum speeds are we considering on our facilities
within different and unique land use context; whether we are considering freight
routes, roadway safety, what is the speed flow relationship? All of those go into
making decisions about what the ultimate design speed of any facility might be.
And then fitting design elements in the roadway design standards, looking at
geometric considerations, site distance, stopping distance. What are the travel
lane dimensions? What are the design elements that go into the pedestrian
zone, the street tree zone or street tree strip? Whether there is on street parking
or not; what kind of transit services? Then there are various federal and
professional design guidelines and documentation that we reference in looking at
roadway design and that can also include state and local design standards and
whether or not we eventually consider variances and exceptions to those as we
look about developing livable street context. Functional classification -you have
seen these pictures before, I think, maybe in different form, but on the range of
functional classification, the Interstate facilities provide for the higher speed,
higher capacity, longer trip inner city travel, state highways and principle arterials
share in some of that inner city travel. The minor arterial system provides cross
community flow and connectivity to the principle arterials and interstate facilities
ad then the collector streets provide subdivision connectivity or in between
neighborhoods connection between the arterial system and then the local streets
provide access out to the collector and arterial street network.
Zaremba: Mr. President.
Rountree: Mr. Zaremba.
Zaremba: Mr. Mortensen, on the last slide that you were on, somewhere in the
preparatory materials that we had there was a little fine print statement that said
that we still needed to acknowledge the terminology that the federal government
was using and I wasn't certain, is this what the federal government uses?
Mortensen.: It is very similar to this. There are some principle arterial, minor
arterial, major collector, minor collector, but in essence what we have been doing
with our terminology while we are labeling streets with livable land use context,
we are not losing sight of what those federal policy requirements are for the
functional classification for eventual federal funding. So we are trying to keep the
sensitivity to that, Council. That is a very excellent point. We are not trying to
replace all of the terminology, so we get lost in that funding scheme. This has
been, not just here in the Valley, but across the country depending on the land
use setting, sometimes our streets don't adjust to the land use context. This is
just a quick picture of a state highway in you know USA city across the country
where the speed changes dramatically, the land uses changes but in essence
the street profile changes very little. The only change in all six of these slides is
that in some sections the yellow line is solid in both directions whereas it's
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February 19, 2008
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dashed elsewhere. The travel lane widths, the shoulder, the peripheries doesn't
change at all and that's really the essence of trying to come at livable street
design is saying our street dimensions and our profile really ought to be sensitive
to the land use and a one size fits all isn't really necessarily desired nor is it
functionally safe or optimal to serve the adjoining land uses in the system around
it. Physical context is really important. On this picture we've put some historical
context about how transportation planning has looked at transportation route to
development. To the left, historically our first days of transportation planning was
really looking at pavement management. How could we make our brand new
road last as long as possible? As land use issues and access issues arose there
was more concern in an evolving paradigm of looking at right of way acquisition
and preservation to make sure we had appropriate space to widen facilities
eventually as areas developed.. Then the third. slide from the left we started
thinking about access management in particular whereas unmanaged access
could lead to a host of different kinds of access points with potentially conflicting
movements how to better coordinate those through our land use and
transportation plans so that we can achieve the safest in optimum flow on those
kinds of routes and that led to more development around corridor management
where we started looking at the compefitive land uses around a singular corridor
to better maintain the flow of traffic and optimize capacity through effective land
use planning. Where we are today is really looking at area wide land use and
transportation relationships. It's not just within individual corridors but we're
looking at crossing in parallel routes across the whole spectrum of the functional
classification and how land uses are best served by those relationships. Looking
at it from a profile from rural to the left to urban to the right we will defiantly see a
variety of different conditions both on building site parking on this particular slide
where in the rural area land uses with buildings have relatively random
placement but when you transition into the suburban urban area you start to see
more patternized building placement. The same thing for parking out in the rural
area its individual we start to see more composite parking on premise in the
suburban areas more consolidated parking facilities in the urban areas. In this
next slide as we're looking at the street spacing and the kinds of access that you
look at in the rural area we're essentially looking at private and uncontrolled
access that's more shared and controlled in the suburban area but we're seeing
more densified intersecting and parallel street systems in the urban area. In
essence also street access follows that same type of pattern. I'm going to
quickly talk about capacity of travel lanes because that will become a level of
service policy issue later on that I would like to discuss. What we've measured in
the traffic engineering profession in the maximum volume that can be
accommodated on a typical freeway land is about 2,000 vehicles per hour per
lane and at that volume the speed of the freeway facility actually drops from the
optimum of 55 or 60 miles an hour to about 30 miles an hour so it's a slight
misnomer to think that higher speed equates to highest capacity. That's not
necessarily so and that when you're looking at optimum maximum capacity we're
really thinking about a more moderated speed. When we think about our
arterials they aren't necessarily posted beginning at 55 miles an hour but again if
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February 19, 2008
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we had optimum access and flow characteristics we're likely not going to get
more than about 30 to 35 miles an hour. I'm going to talk about pedestrian safety
a little bit and it will comeback to that 30 to 35 mile an hour characteristic. I just
would like us to remember that. In the urban environment the motorist cone of
vision is really important when we're thinking about this speed flow relationship.
In the upper left hand corner at 30 miles an hour the motorist vision is fairly
confined within the corridor. It's not easily for motorists to see peripherally other
activities that are occurring potentially within those urban corridors so your vision
is really constrained to what's farther down the street. At 25 miles an hour that
cone of vision expands a bit. At 20 and 15 miles an hour the motorist can
entertain all of the activity that's really happening within that urban corridor. It's
not a surprise then that many of our studies nationally say that in the range of 25
to 30 miles an hour that's generally in an urban grid system about the optimum
speed by which we can see our best capacity but a motorist capability of seeing
the additional peripheral activity that can mean for a safer both motorist and
pedestrian environment. It's also been studied both nationally and internationally
that there is a relationship between the probabilities between the
fatalities when hit by a vehicle. I'm not predicting how often or where that'segoring
to occur but when a pedestrian is struck by a vehicle that's directly related to the
likelihood of fatality and speed of vehicle itself. At 20 or 25 miles an hour the
pedestrian is very unlikely going to die from that collision. That more than
quadruples at 30 miles and hour and then doubles at 40 miles an hour so when
struck by a car at 40 miles an hour you only have about a 15 percent chance of
survival. So it's really important to be thinking that when we're looking at
transportation services around activities land use activities that are going to
generate the potential for high pedestrian crossing opportunities that we need to
be thinking about speed in that relationship on the roadway itself.
Zaremba: Either that or we need faster pedestrians.
Mortensen: Very agile and fast pedestrians who could withstand the blow. I hate
to joke about it but if you're. out there walking around on 40 and 45 mile an hour
traffic you're going to have to be very, very careful. We have to be specific about
our design facilities for the pedestrian environment when we're thinking about
those higher speed arterials absolutely. Again, we're not trying to predict when
or how a pedestrian is going to get hit it's just when they are struck the higher the
speed the more likely that pedestrian is going to die.
De Weerd: Now is that also I guess an endorsement for detached sidewalks?
Mortensen: Madam Mayor there isn't a predictor. I've been keeping track with
both Oregon State University and there are a couple of other researchers at the
University of Texas who are trying to measure the safety ramifications of those
pedestrian environment elements that we try to remind ourselves that are
important. What's the space and what kinds of uses are within that park strip that
separates the sidewalk from the travel lanes whether there is on street parking
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February 19, 2008
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what's the overwriting vehicular operating speed versus posted speed? What's
the pedestrian volume? What are the adjacent land uses? That's all if you were
to throw that into a mathematical formula a lot of variables that could then spit out
well what is going to be the likely vehicular and pedestrian safety characteristics.
They don't have it all put together. There haven't been enough case studies
measured to have a determinant that says the wider the pedestrian strip the safer
the pedestrian environment yet. There are many best hunches from some of
those researchers looking at that issue but they don't have conclusive evidence
yet and they are missing a lot of the intervening variables. They haven't studied
segments with all of those variable in mind yet and they are asking themselves
well what can we do to expand our research to come up with those kinds of
conclusions so we're kind of left to our best judgment in the meantime. There
are things that we can borrow from that say you know if you do have separation
of space it's likely going to be safer we just don't know how much. If you have a
wider pedestrian facility that can handle an existing pedestrian demand in a
downtown area certainly that's likely going to be safer than a skinnier sidewalk. If
we have a reduced travel speed on an arterial that's adjacent to those kinds of
land uses that's likely going to be safer than for the pedestrian an
speed arterial in a similar environment. So we know that those are pra c cal
logical conclusions but we don't have science to back it up yet. Excellent
question. I have been asking that to many people because I really wanted to
come up with some it would be nice to know you know what those factors are
they're just not available to us yet. In this TLIP study I wanted to give you an
update on what we've done historically since the year and a half ago when we
began this work. We conducted some original workshops with ACHD staff to find
out what are our existing standards what has been the practice with communities
in working in interagency efforts to plan for arterial and collector street
development. I wanted to know what some of the obstacles were and what were
some of the areas that needed work on existing street standards to meet growing
expectations. Then we held a series of workshops with local jurisdicfion staff,
professional engineers and planners in the community outside of the public
agencies to get perspective of you know what are peoples ideas about perhaps
revising street standards to better meet local comprehensive plan and planned
developments. Then we had a series of workshops with both the ACHD
commission and the City of Boise because at that time there was a specific
discussion between the Highway District and the City of Boise on a couple of
projects that were really relevant to the overall topic at hand.. The issues I think
are also relevant to the City of Meridian. Who is responsible for paying for the
installation and trees and then maintaining them over time? Who is responsible
for securing appropriate right of way for that park strip? Who is responsible for a
wider pedestrian corridor when the land uses are generating higher pedestrian
travel? So we talked about those things. Then using our expertise from
Cladding Jackson, Dan Burden came out and actually rode around on some of
the City of Boise's fire equipment particularly along rural or excuse me along
collector and local streets to talk about the dimensional requirements of fire
equipment in those settings. We also made presentation to the COMPASS
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Board and had follow up workshops with both the Highway Commission and then
in a joint setting Katy correct me if I'm wrong it's the Blueprint, what's the name of
that consortion to give them an update on how we were proceeding with the
study. So that's who we've been working with to date but over the past two
months we've been meeting both with your staff, City of Boise Staff, Kuna with
Ada County tomorrow and then we have Star, Garden City and Eagle next week
to go over with staff specific individual city comprehensive plans and some of our
suggested and draft study findings for livable street design. What does the draft
livable street design guide or manual cover and I want to go through that with
you. Way back a year ago we met with jurisdictions and professionals to talk
about the general space of both the street and then the pedestrian way on either
side of the typical section that we define as the carriage way or the street from
curb to curb. In different land use settings we broke our professional participants
out into tables and went over specifics about what do we think are appropriate
lane widths. Whether or not on street parking is an option to consider and how
wide. What should the bike land width be what about the width of the pedestrian
zone elements, the park strip in between the curb and the sidewalk if that's
important? How wide should the sidewalk be and then ultimately we could add
all of that up and say what's the right of way profile for such a thing for the typical
downtown areas that we've called town centers. A commercial arterial corridor, a
residential corridor and then we also looked at industrial. We looked at those
general different land use settings and came up with a range of mathematical
expressions for those various characteristics and that was really the beginning
point of our work in TLIP. What we wanted to be able to do was not only help
define what the optimum full street profile should be in an undeveloped or
developing area but also provide for latitude to accommodate to the best of our
abilities the optimum for both vehicular pedestrian and bicycle travel within a
constrained right of way. We were looking at variations of the theme on
particularly reducing travel lane widths that we can accommodate for instance a
slightly wider bike land and a wider sidewalk corridor than the current standards
provide latitude for. The layout of this draft livable street design guide is helpful
to understand what we're trying to do is bring both the traffic engineer or roadway
engineer and land use planner and the elected official to a document where on
one side of the page you can understand the land use context by which these
variable and livable street design options are set and then on the right hand side
of the page more than just a profile but kind of a picture of how that land use
might meet the dimensions of the street that we're discussion. So we broke the
manual down that way and we have a variety of different what we call street
typologies that help define those variable street design options for each land use
general setting. On the left hand side of the page you will see street hierarchy,
how does the street fit within the network particularly focusing on connectivity.
How does the build environment form and what typical building placement do you
see around those kinds of settings and how do the buildings define the street and
then what are the land use components that relate to that particular type of
street. What are the basic land uses, what is their relationship to the surrounding
areas and how does the issue of land use compatibility define that particular
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February 19, 2008
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typology. You see that then well defined I think for each of the typologies on the
left hand side and how planners can then focus on those types of issues as they
relate to street design. On the right hand side that's where we see the profile.
The actual number of lanes, the lane widths whether on street parking is an
option what's the width of the pedestrian zone and how does that fit with the type
of building placement that's identified. We were very specific in the pedestrian
zone to fully define four elements in the pedestrian zone. The clear zone that's
where close to the curb we place sign posts. There may be utility boxes that are
flush with either the park strip or a wider sidewalk. Then in the buffer zone that's
the placement in combination with some of the width in the clear zone that we
can plant trees or we can have a paved surface between trees that are placed in
tree wells and the third portion is the actual walk zone that we identify for each
land use. We're thinking about minimum walk width for ADA compliance as our
baseline there then the frontage zone how does the sidewalk then buffer up next
to either the right of way edge or an adjacent building. Those dimensions
change for each of the typologies that we have. The various typologies real
quick we have commercial typologies we see those commonly in many of arterial
corridors where the orientation is primarily to the road way. That particular street
is both the service and customer access typically provided on that roadway. And
what we've seen typically are four and five travel lanes with a five or a seven foot
sidewalk right next to the curb line. Usually the land use buildings are placed
somewhat at a distance from those commercial streets and there is a parking lot
in between. There is the option with these typologies that if those lands were to
redevelop that expanded pedestrian space could be acquired or coordinated
such that street trees could eventually be placed through redevelopment along
those corridors. We have a transitional commercial typology where completed
arterials can better meet their true function and also provide side street service
with expanded pedestrian zone. The possibility of on street parking but certainly
accommodating bicycle travel and heavier pedestrian travel along those
transitional commercials this is an example of how that might happen. Today we
see in many of our typical commercial strip malls a fairly travel land oriented
arterial sidewalk right next to the arterial and the buildings are located quite a
ways away from the arterial over time those buildings can be placed closer to the
arterial and a wider pedestrian zone be provided and intersecting streets can be
similarly designed for a more land use context sensitive pattern of arterial and
collector streets. At the same time we're still preserving the capacity of that
arterial is just serving those adjacent uses a bit more in a pedestrian friendly
environment. Our commercial typologies also extend to the collector and local
street level and in our town center typologies these are more for the downtown
Meridian and downtown Boise environment we're looking at that as a merging
land use context as blueprint progresses. Typically seen today in our downtown
areas and what we have in those areas are mixed uses and multiple levels of
building development that emphasis pedestrian amenities. Arterial collector and
local street typologies are provided for the town center downtown areas. Three
lane and multi lane arterials two and three land collectors and then the local
street system all of these have a fairly wider pedestrian zone than some of the
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other typologies. Then we have residential typologies for more traditional
neighborhoods and then also the need for neighborhood connectivit
facilities in the commercial areas we have neighborhood arterials, conventionlal
arterials, collector and local streets where we see the variation on either
immediate access to individual residential properties or consolidated access for
those in the upper right hand corner along parallel and intersecting streets and
the conventional arterial is representative of the more controlled access corridor.
Again in each of these typologies the residential streets are separated from the
sidewalk with a park strip or at least a buffer zone for pedestrian livability. We
also have industrial arterial and collector local street typologies, buffering the
sidewalk from the arterial again. I think the major area here is the travel lane
widths are wider to accommodate truck travel whereas the residential and
commercial particularly the center arterials have the option for reduced travel
land widths where pedestrian activity is likely going to be more prevalent. We
also include in the draft livable street design guide rural road typologies for the
outlying areas, multi lane and two lane sections for those routes that serve
between cities and towns. The emphasis there is if we're thinking about an
arterial corridor where it's likely going to require more than two lanes that we're
acquiring and preserving right of way to accommodate that effectively and cost
efficiently. In the planning process we were engaged in the discussion around
higher end arterials or state highways that serve a greater mobility function than
local arterials even on the one mile grid system. So we provided a map where
we identified mobility corridors certainly distinguishing state freeway, interstate
freeway, state highway or express way or a planned express way routes and the
historical principal arterial ACHD principle arterial facilities that are and have
been intended to provide for a higher volume higher speed than other arterials.
We put together a major street map which took a draft approach at identifying
what those mobility corridors were and those are really guidelines for the larger
streets that have greater right of way needs but are typically in more of the
commercial industrial areas and in some residential areas. In the front of the
livable street design guideline we included how bike lane and pedestrian facilities
are accommodated and what kinds of policy resources are used to define those.
It was our recommendation that bike lanes be considered on all arterial and
collector typologies and that ASHTO American Association of State Highway
Transportation Officials provide design guidance for bicycle facilities. Typically
we're looking at a five foot bicycle lane as the minimum desired sometimes on
the busier arterials we'll want six foot bicycle lanes. Currently ACHD is drafting
and about to distribute the draft bicycle master plan which we've been
coordinating with that effort along the way. We talked about the pedestrian zone
a little bit earlier but the real issues that we wanted to stress were adequate tree
planting space suggested to allow safety benefits of street trees. Madam Mayor
that was one of the issues that was one of our original considerations and you
duly noted that as well. We wanted to make sure that the walk zone sufficiently
not only met but perhaps in some places exceeded ADA standards for a clear
zone width for pedestrians of all types. If you design for the mobility and vision
impaired you're doing a really good design for those who don't have those
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February 19, 2008
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impairments. That also the frontage zone is duly defined so that there's a building
shy zone so when you have buildings that are fronting the pedestrian zone that
we're not resulting in doorways or other impertinences that are blocking the walk
clear zone. Roles and responsibilities. We in our original discussions wanted to
lay out as consistent as possible with Idaho Statute what are ACHD's
responsibilities and we itemized those here. Right of way, securing the right of
way as suggested in the livable street design guide so that the various pedestrian
and buffer zone amenities can be placed, the space for the planter strip or street
trees and wells. Roadway lighting but I want to be specific for that. The State
Statute emphasizes roadway lighting for the highway vehicle not necessarily for
the pedestrian scale lighting. The city and private development would be
responsible for the construction or placement of landscaping including street
trees. Any additional space for desired expansion on the pedestrian zone itself if
much wider sidewalks were desired and then if there is the desire for the
additional space for on street parking that would be the responsibility of either
private development for providing that right of way are coordinated through the
city. Those are some of the general roles and responsibilities that we wanted to
identify and would certainly want to hear your feedback on that tonight. I expect
we will want to come back to that slide. One of the things that we were tasked as
part of this study was to coordinate with the Blueprint for Good Growth emerging
policies regarding adequate public facility ordinance and a different look at traffic
level of service that is consistent with that blueprint effort. So we've included in
our individual. workshops with city staff a fairly long conversation about level of
service policy. Currently ACHD has adopted through their capital improvement
plan a general level of service D or E which if you look at the typical definition of
level of service as the policy threshold of which new land proposals or
development applications would be measured to determine whether or not they
are consistent with available capacity and current plans and policies or whether
they are triggered in the need for providing mitigation measures on the
transportation system. In this picture the color portion the level of service grade
letter A, B, C, D and F is provided down the left column. The volume to capacity
ratio the number of vehicles per lane of capacity is defined on the right and
there's kind of a pictorial that at least shows a relatively uncongested
environment what it looks like at the top and a fairly congested environment on
the bottom. On the minor arterial system in the current CIP for ACHD level of
service D is the threshold and on the principal arterials it was selected at level of
service E so that at E there still is about 10 percent capacity left over when
measured during those critical commuter hours and we picked the PM peek
hours as the baseline of measure. On the left we'll come back to this but there
are geographic and additional .policy measures that we wanted to consider
consistent with blueprint where we expand upon ACHD's current level of service
policy and that has a geographic complexity to it as well as the three major
functional classifications as we've grouped them to be either ITD highways
ACHD's mobility arterials or the general ACHD arterial and I could also add
collector street system to that. At current status the CI'P that ACRD has adopted
is really intended to provide appropriate thresholds to define the triggering
Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting
February 19, 2008
Page 12 of 24
mechanism that defines capacity improvement needs fora 20 year planning
horizon. That was used to identify the list of project needs included in the current
CLP which targeted those routes that needed additional travel lanes on the
arterial network to meet those level of service thresholds plus a separate
measure for intersections so that there was consistency on the fundamental
technical measures used to derive those level of service conditions and
measurements.
Zaremba: Mr. President.
Rountree: David.
Zaremba: Mr. Mortensen can you go back one slide? I don't see on that any
right turn lanes.
Mortensen: No we kept it general. Whether or not a center left turn lane has a
significant impact on an overall arterial capacity right turn lanes do have an
impact at primarily the intersection junction points. So those are accommodated
when you look at the intersection level of service analysis runs that were used as
part of the CIP process.
Zaremba: Okay thanks.
Mortensen: Before it was just a general level of service D policy threshold for the
entire region. That wasn't found to be very useful when it got to looking at a 20
year planning horizon looking at specifically the arterial system alone. As part of
blueprint we have to come back and say well wait a minute how can we do this
and also be consistent with the needs for the definitions of the adequate public
facilities ordinance. I think that's really important for your consideration tonight.
We'll come back to this slide in a little bit.
De Weerd: Mr. President.
Rountree: Mayor.
De Weerd: I guess I have a question. I saw one of your designations were fhe
(End of Tape)
De Weerd: I know from our public safety aspect they are kind of death lanes and
cause a lot of drain on our public services sector. We get the highest number of
accidents in those turn lanes so are you - I saw they were on arterials but is
there a speed restriction as you start looking at having those? Are you looking at
policies of what roads could have the continuous and what roads shouldn't?
Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting
February 19, 2008
Page 13 of 24
Mortensen: We are Madam Mayor. I'II answer that and it's going to come from
both transportation and a land use solution perspective. On a number of the
typologies we've identified if you see some of these pictures where we're actually
placing raised median and treatments in the median to channelize left turn
movements.. Well those can happen very well when land uses are appropriately
placed .and designed so that there isn't an inordinate amount of immediate
access points along some of these arterials. The continuous center left turn lane
crudely defined by others as being either the chicken lane or the suicide lane the
defacto my lane of use at certain times can be very dangerous when you have
uncontrolled accesses serving high generating trip makers on both sides of the
arterial. We have not specified exactly what those standards should be. We're
going to jump ahead a little bit. ACRD is working on a revised access
management policy that will be worked on to fit with the principles of TLIP so that
land use and transportation can be simultaneously planned and designed to
minimize the place in which you put that continuous center left turn lane.
Whereas if we do it right you can have much nicer median treatments,
channelized and controlled access along the arterial system. So long as you've
got land uses that are supporting parallel and intersecting collector and local
streets and even private accesses so that the arterial isn't the result of the one
route that serves everyone's' access needs. It's going to take both the land use
policy and plan application as well as an access management policy and livable
street design application to achieve the reduction of that well let's just keep it as
a center continuous left turn lane because we don't know what the access
conditions are going to be like. I think you'll see a movement away from that
defacto application over time.
De Weerd: Thank you
Mortensen: I know that's long winded but it's both a land use and transportation
solution not just a street design.,
De Weerd: Well yes it has everything to do with access.
Mortensen: Everything to do with access. And then that begets what do we do
about land use and how do we define the land access so that we're not expecting
the arterial to do all of the access function. As part of the APFO coordination we
knew we needed to come up with a variable level of service to address some of
the emerging issues that we know are going to be the case 20 years from now
when we're going to see more congestion and the regions requirement I think to
address the acceptability of congestion throughout the community. This is a hard
thing to accept. Every urban area in the country has had to deal with it at one
point in time or another. I have more graphics in some of our other
documentation that's supported by some of ACHD's research but the public
dollars are not being stretched as far to accommodate the host and the number
and range of transportation solutions that they are today. The number of reasons
why the tax systems for streets and highways is not keeping pace with growth
Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting
February 19, 2008
Page 14 of 24
the cost of building roads has become extremely more expensive and far
exceeding the cost of growth over the last five years and we're just seeing that
the dollars not going as far. Growth isn't stopping because of that and there are
many community expectations and desires that the full range of transportation
options be addressed. We're going to have to deal with congestion in an
acceptability way. A little bit more in the future than we have historically in the
past. Capacity solutions themselves make conflict with local plans and I think
communities in the valley are starting to see where perhaps the widest and best
vehicular capacity solution isn't the best land use compatibility solution. I think
those are probably going to be tough policy maker decisions that are going to be
made on a case by case basis but we need to have a level of service policy that
recognizes that eventual need,.
De Weerd: Excuse me.
Mortensen: And in some places capacity solutions are just not going to be
feasible. There may not be right of way or there may be environmental
constraints where those conditions may take place.
De Weerd: So when you talk about levels of service are you also going - I still
have that question on downstream effects. So we here in the center of the valley
or all of these roads that are impacted by fringe development how do you
separate what our impact will be on that road versus the upstream effect on that
same segment of road? And who's paying for it? I guess those of us that are in
the middle Garden City has had that concern certainly portions of Boise have that
concern and Meridian has that concern as the areas around us that drive through
us are we going to have a continuous moratorium because what they're doing
impacts us and our level of service so we'll never do anything.
Mortensen: Right. Madam Mayor I'm going to - do you want me to answer your
question Mr. Rountree?
Rountree: I was just raising my hand for the Mayor.
Mortensen: I know you simultaneously raised your hand I'll bet it's the same
issue. My next slide has the basis by which I think we can try to answer your
question Madam Mayor. In blueprint the original map that came out of blueprints
first effort was the tier map which as consistent as possible to the findings of
communities of motion on the choices scenario said here were our urban areas
but here were our rural areas and I'll add to that everything that we've studied in
TLI'P was really founded on those principles and the COMPASS long range
transportation plan social economic demographic forecast that went behind all of
that planning we tried to stay consistent with because we knew even as we were
getting started with this study there were a host of planned communities that
would have a tremendous impact to what were the previously agreed upon
assumptions about what urban form was going to be like, what the transportation
Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting
February 19, 2008
Page 15 of 24
system that was going to be needed for that agreement around what urban form
ought to be like. If there's a major change in the assumption about where urban -
the level and type of development would be there had to be some analysis that
then says well that's different than what we planned in the past what kind of
impact does that have on the City of Meridian's Comprehensive Plan and plan for
arterial and collector street system to serve your plan. So the important part of
the level of service policy is it provides those trigger mechanisms by which the
adequate public facility ordinance can be implemented to make sure that those
unplanned uses provide for the capacity improvements to not only serve their use
but fhey would need to mitigate where they had a detrimental impact elsewhere.
This gets to the downstream for instance, in the rural area to the south of
Meridian if a new city the size of 40,000 people were quote approved down there
well who's going to pay for all of the transportation infrastructure to serve that.
That's not in anyone's regional or local either comprehensive plan or
transportation plan through ACRD or the region as a whole in the long range plan
that particular development proposal would have to abide by the adequate public
facility ordinance do it's study and research to determine what transportation
network is needed to serve that urban use and if there's downstream impact by
that particular plan proposal it would need to participate in appropriate mitigation
of that. That's an awfully exaggerated but there are some relevant I think cases
where there is some fairly significantly sized planned communities that might
have that kind of impact. Now I haven't measured those impacts but it will be
there responsibility to do so before there is approval particularly before the
highway district as the implementing transportation agency is then required to
change its capital improvement plan to meet any neighboring capacity issues that
are caused by such a thing. That gets back to TLIP in the manner that TLIP is
intended to also identify the appropriate right of way and street cross section to
serve your current comp plan not future unanticipated major comprehensive plan
changes. If there is a negative impact then there needs to be mitigation
measures that hit the downstream effort which might mean filling in the sidewalk
system, additional public transportation bus system capacity enhancements bus
stops, a host of transit design issues filling in the bicycle network, making sure
that if there is a negative impact that a full urban solution is part of the approval
of those unplanned uses. It's hard without having an exact example to kind of
demonstrate that for you showing how that might you know immediately effect
Meridian as I know you do have some proposals out there but theoretically that's
how the adequate public facility ordinance is to work and instead of just applying
the level of service D throughout the county we're suggesting relaxation of that
level of service D for the very compact urban areas the downtowns because we
don't want to discourage infill and higher intensity uses in those areas and that's
consistent with blueprint. In the urban fringe or the suburban area we'll still be
looking at the level of service E or D threshold but in the rural area we're going to
apply a level of service C we're suggesting a level of service C threshold.. So
immediately if there is an urban level of development out in the rural hinterland
it's going to have a much higher standard to abide by in that adequate public
facility ordinance and that's going to trigger then its identification of significant
Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting
February 19, 2008
Page 16 of 24
urban level of transportation solutions to serve that particular use. We've been
working consistently with the consultant for Blueprint to make sure that those
general policies are consistent as we would apply that. We had been meeting
with city staff and tomorrow with county staff as this is the variable level of
service measure that we're suggesting. In follow up to your question I think it
leads right into that slide that I was prepared to bring up. Today we're talking
about level of service for just the one PM peak hour four to five or five to six and
we're trying to figure out is there sufficient capacity on the system to meet that
varied crunch load during the peak hour. If we're on a busy arterial and it
exceeds level of service D or E we're saying we need additional capacity on that
route. In the future on some of those corridors we're saying you know we're
going to let it go to F. F may not be stand still traffic but it's going to be pretty
congested but those may be routes that you know we don't want to widen them
from five to seven or nine or even something crazy like 11 travel lanes because it
doesn't fit with our land use. In the rural area we're going to want to see level of
service C during that PM peak hour. In a mid day peak hour we do want our
urban area to not be at level of service F however we want it to be more like C or
D somewhere in that area. On some facilities we might even accept E during the
mid day but we don't want it to look like F all day long. That's the point around
the flexible level of service thresholds. So we're suggesting a two hour level of
service. The PM peak hour first hour might be more stringent would relax that in
the mid day hour. We're not sure just what that hour is yet we've got some more
study to do to figure out what that second hour might mean. It's supposed to be
in many areas we're going to accept congestion in the dense urban areas in the
middle of the day we don't necessarily seek that as desirable. In the suburban
area it's going to be a little less stringent and then in the rural area more so. I
hope that kind of gives you an idea of where this variable level of service policy
will be coming from.
Rountree: David do you have a question.
Zaremba: Yes this actually steps back a little bit but on the subject of being able
to determine what an impact of a large or even multiple subdivisions in one area
as you say the south portion of Meridian could add a whole city's worth of 40,000
people or something. COMPASS of course has the ability to model traffic sheds
and figure out where that traffic would go and where the needs would be. The
issue that we run into is the push back from the landowners through their
developers is that somehow they're not required to do anything offsite.
Somewhere back in my memory it seems to me there is even state law that
supports that view. In order to be able to require the regional systematic fixes
that we need and it's not a bad example to say we could add 40,000 people in
one area. One of the things I think we need to do long range is look at full build
out of the valley and see what those facilities need to be. Somehow we need to
deal with. the landowner and developer saying well I can fix what's on the
property that I own but I'm not responsible for anything offsite and how do we
deal with that.
Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting
February 19, 2008
Page 17 of 24
Mortensen: I have just professional opinion on that. We've not really been
passed. to struggle with that whole issue as part of the TLIP study but I'm
remotely aware of the issue enough I think Councilman that I can give you at
least a couple of sense worth on the issue. One is state statute does say you
know if you're a developer you have to provide for adequate public facilities to
meet you. If you're -theoretically if you're currently a rural user and you've got a
rural highway you're served but if you're planning an urban style of development
you've got to come up with urban services because the rest of the counties tax
payers are theoretically not paying to provide urban services to you. That part of
who are we and what are we responsible for doing when we propose a land
development I think gets to that issue. Now I'm not a land use attorney so I don't
know the ins and outs but that's the general theoretical basis that I've understood
that begins with Idaho statute and as being broadened and defined as part of the
adequate public facilities ordinance. That's the best ability that I have that says
you can't just say I've got 140 acres of rural land now where's my urban arterial
and street system to serve it. Because the rest of the public is not responsible
for providing those urban services there has to be a commensurate you have to
come up with the system as part of your development. And I'll tell you this that in
the adequate public facilities ordinance there may be other technical elements
that the highway district and the local communities can apply that says if you
have an extraordinary impact you really need to either think collectively with your
neighbors and do special traffic studies to identify what your needs and your
obligatory participation is on those enhancements. I think that's the appropriate
way to go in terms of sound public policy. That's the extent of my knowledge.
Bird: Thank you.
Mortensen: This is the variable level of service concept that we've been
discussing so far with Boise, your staff and the City of Kuna. Again, all of our
analysis was based on the general urban rural context that was defined in
communities in motion choices and we know as soon as that was drawn there
have been a lot of discussion about changes to that as each city has been
addressing enhancements to their comprehensive plan and the boundaries that
go with. So street typologies. It's very difficult to see this map but I did want to at
least demonstrate what we talked about with staff for two solid days. We split
north meridian up and looked at south meridian but then considered what were
the connectivity and cross over issues kind of using I-84 as the boundary simply
from a mapping context. We took an aerial photograph and overlaid that with the
city's comprehensive plan, which correct me if I'm wrong it's not your current
draft plan it was the one that was adopted a year or so ago. I can't remember
exactly what the date of it was. We overlaid that comprehensive land use plan
map and then in addition to that we laid out our draft assessment of what we
thought the typical street typology should be both for arterials, state highway
mobility corridors but then in some cases existing collector streets and our best
effort at planned collector street connectivity through in this example north
Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting
February 19, 2008
Page 18 of 24
meridian. We added some additional information which included the number of
existing travel lanes on arterials and in addition to that the number of planned
arterial lanes that's reflective of the current capital improvement plan. Then in
addition to that we identified what the current right of way as acquired by ACHD
to know just to the extent width the existing right of way can accommodate those
planned typologies or not. In looking at all of those we started asking do we have
the right typologies identified, have we identified the appropriate type of arterial
whether or not certain arterials should have a greater mobility function to them or
not and then ultimately how do all of those fit with their cities comprehensive
plan. I would say we made it a series of changes probably 10 to 15percent of the
typologies that we drafted we talked about revisions that staff felt better fit you
cities comprehensive plan. We did that in the North Meridian area and then also
in the South Meridian are. I have a series of slides that I can tell you what
modifications we made. I also wanted to emphasize for you that we included a
map in our evaluation of some of ACHD's ideas about what those principal
arterial or mobility arterials ought to be and they were originally designated for
Fairview, Franklin, Overland and then the State Highway system of I-84 and
Chinden as east west routes. Then north south routes included the proposed or
under plan Highway 16 express way and Eagle Road and then to the south
Highway 69 and portions of Ten Mile under the planned Ten Mile Interchange
Study. If it's okay with you I want to go quickly through the revisions that reflect
the discussion with ACHD and city staff. Talking about street typologies, major
streets and then areas where city staff felt there needed to be better coordination
with COMPASS and the other regional partners to help resolve long range plan
findings. The first set of street typology change I would say that the range and
the number of draft typologies and the map was generally well supported. We
didn't change everything we targeted on specific corridors and they made really
good sense. Some of those technical refinements were in downtown Meridian
we right off the bat defer to the downtown Meridian streetscape guide because it
really does have the details for you that really abide by TLIP principles. The
dimensions exceed the minimums that we identified in our TLIP documentation.
Then the revised Main and Meridian sections are as follows. I-84 to Franklin we
changed that to planned commercial arterial and then from Franklin to Fairview
we changed it to a town center arterial because that's more indicative of how the
Comp plan is likely and is going to be encouraged to develop in that area. On
Franklin Road from Ten Mile to Canyon we modified that through suggestion to
the planned commercial with the option of 12 foot lanes because there are
industrial uses in that area but then from the city limits to Ten Mile planned
commercial again but ultimately remove that mobility arterial designation on the
major streets map. That was a suggestion made not only by Meridian but as well
as City of Boise Staff. Ten Mile Interchange Plan also had a well defined and
laid out transportation network complete with a set of it's own street typologies
and routing map and again those dimension generally exceed the TLIP
minimums for on street parking in some cases, bike lane and the pedestrian zone
dimensions. In addition to that city staff wanted to request that TLIP recognize
an additional street section that's not included in the draft TLIP or livable street
Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting
February 19, 2008
Page 19 of 24
design guide for a section that includes back in parking back in diagonal parking
that can also accommodate an on street bicycle lane. Front end parking typically
does not accommodate a bicycle lane very well for bicycle safety measures.
That particular designation the street section E if you had your Ten Mile
Interchange Study out wasn't intended as a through route it was more of a main
street fitting to the land use plan for that particular area. So downtown and the
Ten Mile Interchange really good study findings have a system of well defined
street typologies that in essence to the typology map that we would recommend
that we just generally circle those and refer specifically to those plans without
suggesting any overlap or overlay of the livable street design guide. Cherry
Avenue from Meridian to Linder we suggested that we change that to a planned
commercial arterial and again remove the mobility arterial from that. We kept the
mobility arterial on Fairview east of Meridian and that's also consistent with the
City of Boise workshop findings. On Linder to Canyon County changing that to
residential arterial and again removing the mobility arterial function or designation
of the major streets map for that. Again Ten Mile Interchange, Pine Street, Eagle
to Locust Grove we changed that to planned commercial arterial stating five
lanes but from Locust Grove to Meridian looking at the volume forecast and the
surrounding land uses suggesting limiting that to a three lane cross section.
Then finally the intersection of McMillan and Ten Mile on quarter mile
approaches because of the mixed use plan component around that
comprehensive plan area we suggested changing that from residential to
planned commercial typology and on Overland Road generally a planned
commercial arterial with five lanes and removing the mobility arterial designation
on the major street map. Deferring to the Ten Mile Plan between Linder and Ten
Mile and then a residential arterial instead of a mobility arterial from Ten Mile out
to the Canyon County line and then real quick Victory around the community
centers as a planned commercial arterials. Amity Lake Hazel, Ten Mile and
Eagle also had suggested revisions where the mobility arterial function was
either removed or we had a diagonal connection between Amity and Lake Hazel
so that we had a county to county regional east west route that had more of a
mobility arterial designation but in terms of further recommendations for planned
coordination I'll address that in a moment. Level of service for the adequate
public facility ordinance policy the proposed level of service policy is generally
supported around the centers. The level of service applies to downtown and the
MDC area and in a specific section around Locust Grove and the Amity regional
center planned portion of your comp plan. That's where we would be looking at
level of service F in the peak hour and E in the off peak hour for those types of
facilities like arterials. Urban level of service applies elsewhere throughout the
Meridian urban plan area and that is in the peak hour we would be looking at
level of service E as the policy threshold in the PM peak hour and D in the off
peak hour. Then the rural level of service applies outside the urban plan area
and we would be looking at levels of service C and C as kind of the policy
threshold and triggering mechanism for the adequate public facility ordinance.
On street tree policy staff generally supportive of the six and eight foot ACHD
tree planting policy but it was duly recognized that there's mixed messages from
Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting
February 19, 2008
Page 20 of 24
the Highway District. There has been suggestion that the policy has been
revised to a strict and only eight foot policy for that width between the curb
section and the sidewalk and we're going back to ACRD to make sure that that
policy is clear. The city was also seeking consideration for design exceptions
under constrained environment where the possibility of a four or a five foot strip
could also accommodate a street tree with appropriate design measures to make
sure that the curb line and the sidewalk doesn't get unduly buckled or damaged
by tree root growth. Looking at innovative or qualified designs for that possible
option and that would be in a more constrained right of way where you want to try
to maximize the pedestrian zone wifh street trees under a very constrained right
of way condition. Cost sharing, I think, Katie noted specifically that that's going
to be a significant policy issue for ACHD and all of the communities to come to a
grounding on what that cost sharing means. I gave an overview of that at the
front end of this discussion but generally staff is reflecting supporting effort of the
cost sharing where ACHD secures the right of way even in the pedestrian zone
for the minimum dimensions and that the city would construct and maintain street
trees and landscaping. Access management policy I mentioned that a little bit.
Again staff are seeing conflicting messages from the Highway District where
some efforts have been seeking half mile access limitation on various arterials
not necessarily working with some of your mixed use comprehensive plan
designations and then your emergency response folks were critical with their
input in that particularly on some of the busier arterials that we seek design of the
median so emergency vehicles can respond appropriately when those arterials
are heavily congested during the morning and evening rush periods. Then also
round about designs certainly need to accommodate emergency vehicle access.
Then the traffic impact fee policy I wanted to consider refinements for eligibility.
Some of the collector streets haven't been fully developed for connectivity
because some of the natural features like the canal crossings become obstacles
for an efficient and cost effective completion of some of those collector streets
and can we consider that added cost to make the canal crossing as eligible for
impact fees in the future and that the city has been hearing that some of the
stakeholders in the community would rather prefer a larger or more expensive
traffic impact fee as preferable to an extraordinary impact fee or latecomer
agreement. Plan coordination needs -- south Meridian area there really ought to
be a greater discussion with COMPASS particularly on the assistance on pinning
down the growth assumptions in the south Meridian area consistent with your
comprehensive plan and what are the rural uses in the area. Consideration of
the city's proposed comprehensive plan is considerably different than ACHD's
draft of the south Meridian plan efforts and so that needs some additional work
but then that there really ought to be a regional approach to looking at not
necessarily three east west regional connectors but perhaps two somewhere
between Kuna Mora to the far south and then whether or not it's a single route at
Lake Hazel or Amity, but not necessarily both.. Suggest focusing on the
Communities in Motion recommendations for Kuna Mora and Greenhurst to Lake
Hazel as the mobility highway or arterial section and then limiting Amity to two or
three lanes. Or looking at Amity as the preferred route and the transition doesn't
Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting
February 19, 2008
Page 21 of 24
happen in Ada County it happens in Canyon County. Then also consider an
extension of the State Highway express way, south of I-84 down to Kuna as a
possibility as a major mobility state highway.
Zaremba: Bravo. I am all in favor of that.
Mortensen: In our discussion we looked at the one mile spacing of arterials
south of the Interstate and we know that interchanges are on two mile spacing so
we started looking at the one mile spaced minor arterials between those routes -
Amity Road, Black Cat and examine whether or not five lanes is really needed on
those routes and whether or not a two or three lane cross sections with
roundabouts at the half mile and many places the one mile grid might be a better
long range plan. So that is a suggestion that goes back for further examination
to see if that certainly could be accommodated. Some of that roundabout
application is consistent with other planning that has gone on in the south
Meridian area. Then on Locust Grove I think that was a similar discussion point
- I should say Locust Grove and Linder and Black Cat. North, south arterials in
north Meridian. There has not been yet a full examination of what the Highway
16 planned expressway with fhe Ten Mile Interchange and what that might mean
to north Meridian arterials, particularly on the north south lines and our
preliminary work suggests that you may not need all of those five lane planned
arterial improvements that were identified in the Capital Improvement Plan, which
did not include fhe Highway 16 expressway as an assumed future improvement.
With that expressway, if it is a reality, it has a pretty dramatic impact on north
Meridian and we think there needs to be further examination as to whether five or
three lane arterial needs are needed in north Meridian on Black Cat, Linder,
Meridian and Locust Grove and whether the five lane arterials can more focused
on those routes that have interchanges with I-84. Furthermore, when we were
talking with staff you have got schools on Linder and you may not want a five
lane arterial in front of those schools so there needs to be reexamination of that
and in addition to that at the intersection of Linder and Ustick, given the adjacent
canal proximity it may be an extremely expensive improvement to try to widen to
five lanes in that section. So those are planned coordination issues that need to
move forward as follow up to our findings.
Zaremba; Mr. President.
Rountree: Mr. Zaremba.
Zaremba: On the subject of giving up five lanes on some of those north south
roads, I would throw into the mix that Black Cat is likely to be an emergency
alternate for Highway 16 and may not need to be five lanes all of the time, but it
certainly should have the capacity to be five lanes when there is an emergency.
So I would think that should be five lanes.
Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting
February 19, 2008
Page 22 of 24
Mortensen: That goes into the mix, Councilman of whether or not there are
frontage roads that are part of Highway 16 expressway design option because
the frontage roads -
Zaremba: -- and if they go through as a -mini frontage roads don't cross the
arterials.
Mortensen: Depending on the alignment of that expressway, if it does move a
little bit further to the west, McDermott itself might be the parallel (inaudible).
Zaremba: Linder, I would only comment the reminder that there is a river
crossing on Linder and that is likely to be busy whether we want it to be or not.
Mortensen: There is more work to be done on that.
Rountree: Katie.
Levihn: Yes, Councilmen, I did want to just say one thing, actually two. First of
all the livable street design guide is supplementary to our current standards so
that you know that the communities have a choice and in some of the instances
your staff has recommended we stay with the regular ones. The second point
probably more important is to point out that this is really a big paradigm shift for
the Valley and as you could see there is a lot of confusion with your staff and
ACHD. We are going through the next couple of years -- we are going to have to
go through some major policy rewrites; the access management policy that was
spoken of is actually going through an interim rewrite now that will probably not
consider ail TLIP principles until TLIP gets adopted. We have got this timing in
sequencing thing. The same thing is happening with our Capital Improvement's
program right now looking at a very limited update. We have to update by next
year. There is not enough time to include all the new things with TLI'P. There is
a number of policy issues, cost shares so I just wanted to point that out and ask
you please bear with us as all of the agencies in the region work through that and
we will try to point out very carefully when things are in interim subject to maybe
within a year future revisions to accommodate whatever the region adopts in this
effort, Blue Print and TLIP effort. It is an important point. Thank you. Thank you
for your time.
Rountree: I am going to suspend any further questions or comments at this point
and time. We are way past our allotted time and we have yet another fairly
significant item to address. Matt if you would kind of take us from where we are
now and we will accommodate you to lead us through some additional discussion
at possibly our next Council meeting or our next workshop and make sure that
we have a list of those things that ACHD and Andy need from us in terms of level
of service and some other issues that they want us to address. With that I would
say we move into Item Number 4 which is the Executive Session and I would
entertain a motion to enter into Executive Session.
Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting
February 19, 2008
Page 23 of 24
' Bird: Mr. President.
Rountree: Mr. Bird.
Bird: I move we go into Executive Session as per Idaho State Code 67-2345
(1)(f).
Borton: Second.
Rountree: It has been moved and seconded. Madame Clerk, roll call.
Roll Call Vote: Rountree, aye; Bird, aye; Zaremba, aye; Borton, aye.
ALL AYES. MOTION CARRIED.
Item 4. Executive Session per Idaho State Code 67-2345(1)(fl - (to
consider and advise its legal representatives in pending litigation):
Rountree: With that I would say we move into Item Number 4 which is executive
session and I would entertain a motion to enter into executive session.
Bird: Mr. President.
Rountree: Mr.6ird.
Bird: I move we go into Executive Session per Idaho State Code 67-2345(1)(f).
Borton: Second:
Rountree: It's been moved and seconded. Clerk, roll call.
Roll-Call: Bird., yea; Rountree, yea; Zaremba, yea; Borton, yea.
MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES
EXECUTIVE SESSION
Bird: Mr. President. Motion to come out of Executive Session.
Rountree: It's been moved to come out of Executive Session, do I have a
second...
Borton: Second.
Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting
February 19, 2008
Page 24 of 24
Rountree.: We have a second all those in favor. All opposed same sign. We
move out of Executive Session. I would entertain a motion to adjourn..
Bird: So moved.
Borton: Moved and second to adjourn all those in favor. Opposed same sign.
ALL AYES. MOTION CARRIED.
MEETING ADJOURNED AT 7:30 P.M.
(TAPE ON FILE OF THESE PROCEEDINGS)
APPROVED:
TAMMY D ERD, MAYOR
C~3 i l 8 i o~
DATE APPROVED
TAO
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ATTESTED:
JAYCE HOLMAN, CITY~L ~ ~~
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