HomeMy WebLinkAbout2001 09-04 Joint ACHDMeridian City Council Special Joint Meeting with September 4, 2001
Ada County Highway District
The special joint meeting of the Meridian City Council and Ada County Highway District was called to order at 4:30 P.M. on Tuesday September 4, 2001 by President Keith Bird for the City
of Meridian and by Commission President Judy Peavey-Derr for ACHD.
Members Present: Keith Bird, Cherie McCandless, and Tammy de Weerd.
Members Absent: Ron Anderson.
Other Staff Present: Gary Smith, and Will Berg.
ACHD Commissioners Present: Judy Peavey-Derr, David Wynkoop, David Bivens, and Sherrie Huber.
ACHD Staff Present: Katey Levihn, Brian Harris, Jerry Schweitzer, Steve Spickelmier, and Kent Brown.
(inaudible discussion amongst group)
Peavey-Derr: --Katey is going to go over this. This is in regard to construction on Overland and Franklin. We have asked staff to do (inaudible) work to do Overland in one piece and
Franklin in one piece. As you’ll see, we had planned it differently but we think this works better with the opening of the high school. We think we can push budgets around and items
around and make it work. So. Lets have Katey go through it and see what you think.
Bird: Can I read this first, Judy?
Peavey-Derr: Sure. If you folks agree, then we’ve got this scheduled for our agenda tomorrow night.
Bird: Council will open up the meeting between the Ada County Commissioners and the Meridian City Council for a special joint workshop, September 4th at 4:30. We’ll open and let it be
known that De Weerd, McCandless, and Bird are here. Okay, go ahead.
Levihn: Thank you, City of Meridian. First of all, what I’ve handed out here is how we currently have the Franklin and Overland Road scheduled. (inaudible) talking about how we’re proposing
changing. Just to refresh your memory, the way their currently scheduled in the 5 year work program, is to do Franklin Road, East First to Nola in 2003. Then if you go to the lower left,
Overland from Meridian to Locust Grove in 2004. Also Franklin Road from Nola to Eagle in 2004. Then do Overland from Locust Grove to Eagle in 2005. As our president said the
Commissioners asked us to take a really good hard look at trying to open Overland Road from Locust Grove to Eagle in 2003. You know, (inaudible) to five lanes with our construction completed
then. Hopefully, in August in time to be substantially complete by the time the school opened. I just wanted to let you know what we currently had planned and what everybody was looking.
The slide show is done for the presentation tomorrow which is (inaudible) September 5th decision for our Commission to act on tomorrow if you all agree this looks right. Yes.
(inaudible discussion amongst Council)
Levihn: Oh, that’s okay.
Peavey-Derr: We’re just getting to the good part.
Levihn: We’re just getting to the good part.
(inaudible discussion amongst Council)
Mayor Corrie arrives
Bird: I already took care of our paper, Mayor.
Corrie: Do what?
Bird: The opening, I already got that.
Corrie: Good, thank you.
Levihn: I was just explaining this handout is not on the presentation. Its what we currently have scheduled on Overland and Franklin Roads. We have Franklin up here on the west side
in 2003. Then the east side of Franklin, west side of Overland in 2004. Then the east side of Overland in 2005. Of course your high school is opening in 2003. So, our commission requested
that staff take a really good hard look at trying to accommodate the opening of Overland from Locust Grove to Eagle in the summer of 2003 in order to be widened to 5 lanes and completed
by the time the high school opens.
Wynkoop: I might interject that Katey has been very diplomatic (inaudible). They have worked really hard (inaudible).
Peavey-Derr: I think, much to your credit, they kind of did the impossible --.
(inaudible discussion amongst Council)
Levihn: So, the first thing the Commission asked us to look at was Overland from
Locust Grove to Eagle opening in 2003. We went through and did that. I do have back up because we were having technical problems earlier so I’m going to hand it out while Brian tries
to help me there. I apologize for that. We’ll talk from here. If you go to the second page –
(inaudible discussion amongst Council)
Levihn: -- what we’re going to present to the Commission tomorrow night, again with your concurrence is, option 1 which is building and just moving the Overland Locust Grove to Eagle
portion up to 2003. We looked at that and staff went on and found there were some difficulties with that which we’ll move there. I’ll explain to you so we came up with an option 2 which
is completely re-sequencing the four roadways. So, go to the next page, option 1 Overland, Locust Grove to Eagle and continue on. The next page shows a little chart like this. We have
looked – What we have to do is look with our preliminary design that’s already been and upgrade it in order to get this designed soon enough so that we can get right-of-way acquired.
I’m not sure why we’ve (inaudible). Okay. Get right-of-way acquired. So, what we would end up with is the section over on the right. We need 90 foot of right-of-way, 5 lane roadway.
The road itself would be 72 feet back to back. We would have a 7 foot attached sidewalk which meets all of our current policy standards. Then down at the bottom you’ll notice that we,
staff recommends and the Commission agrees to stripe bike lanes on there which will all fit in that right-of-way section.
Huber: Katey, what's the lane width on that suppose to be?
Levihn: Well, Steve, I believe Steve, isn’t it eleven and a half or twelve?
Spickelmier: Twelve.
Levihn: Twelve. Now, what you’re getting is the whole thing here.
(inaudible discussion amongst Council)
Bird: We got different colors here.
Levihn: Back to back means from the curb to the curb.
Bird; I was going to say because, yes, you’ve got to change the color because 203 is --. What I’ve got on here says 203 but what you showed up there said --.
De Weerd: I’ll get that.
(inaudible discussion amongst Council)
Levihn: Can we move on? Or try on? Okay and go to the next slide. So, you’re getting all of the slides. These were suppose to be hidden. Keep going. Not that we’re hiding anything but
--. Okay –
(inaudible discussion amongst Council)
Levihn: It was just a lot of detail. What we’ve got here is what the sequencing would look like with just moving that lower right hand eastern portion of Overland Road. We’d end up with
this diagonal arrangement. You can see the 2 purples in 2003, Franklin Road to the west, Overland to the east. Then of course the opposite in 2004. Overland on the west and Franklin
on the east. Next one. So, the pros of doing this option are it would satisfy your request for substantial completion (inaudible) from the school district is 8-29-03. That’s the last
Monday in August. We’d be able to get the Overland and Locust Grove intersection completed as a part of this project. Currently it’s scheduled to be a part of the Locust Grove overpass.
But we would pull that out and do that intersection. There’s a minor cost savings there because of using existing plans. The problems with this is having moved things up, it impacts
our 2002 budget by nearly a million dollars, if all we do is move this road up. It gives us a very compressed schedule on Overland Road which has increased pressure on us to meet the
schedule and one significant schedule delay or a series of little hiccups would mean we may not be able to meet that school date. The diagonal schedule like I showed you, the kind of
criss-cross complicates traffic and emergency vehicle routing during construction. It also complicates construction because those 2 miles take 14, 15 months to do instead of a year.
We might not have enough time to do the 2 sets of roads in 2004. We have an anticipated slight right-of-way increase to accelerate our appraisers and negotiators. So, staff looked at
all of that and decided there was enough problems with just moving that one road that we would look at re-sequencing the whole 4 mile roadway. This is the one we ended up recommending.
We end up with this 2 mile schedule. All of Overland, now from east of Meridian to Eagle in 2003. Then all of Franklin from Meridian to Eagle in 2004. This will show what it looked like.
There’s Overland 2003, Franklin 2004. We would get the overpass provided it fits with ITD’s arrangement in 2005. You will notice that the intersection in the lower left there of State
Highway 69 and Meridian, it will take enough significant update on the design to match ITD’s current roadway that we would have to pull that intersection out and probably do it in 2005.
But, you see the intersection in the middle of the purple, the Locust Grove one, we would separate out a Locust Grove contract and build it with the Overland Road. So, you would get
clear from east of Eagle to east of Meridian built at the one time. Then on Franklin Road we go from East First, again over to Eagle. The pros of doing this again, it satisfy your request
to have the road open for the school. It improves the construction sequencing and traffic and emergency vehicle routing. I understand, I’ve only been here two and a half years, but that
Meridian has requested in the past that we build in 2 mile segments. So, this will be meeting that requirement. You would get 4 miles of road, the 2 on Overland and 2 on Franklin completed
in 2
years instead of 3; 2003 and 4 instead of 3, 4, and 5. A little bit of Franklin would hang over actually into 2005 but it would actually be completed. ITD has recently informed us they
plan on doing a little more work on Meridian Road, just south of Overland. This would not conflict with them since we would be done in 2003 instead of the 2004. As I said, the Overland
and Locust Grove intersection would be completed and we have this minor cost savings. So, the cons are it does still impact our fiscal year 2002 budget. It’s dropped to half a million
because we would move Franklin, East First to Nola into 2004. So, it kind of offsets some of the Overland work. We would also propose in 2002, putting in a temporary signal at Franklin
and Stratford for your fire station since we wouldn’t get to that work until 2004, instead of 2003. We have the same constraints here. It really does put a lot of pressure on us to complete
Overland. So, one delay, if it’s a significant one, it effects the schedule. We may not be able to meet it although we do our best. The right-of-way cost increase, somewhat. That’s from
Overland Road again to accelerate the acquisition of it. Of course Franklin, East First to Nola, which was scheduled to be built in 2003 is now going to be in 2004. But instead you get
the 2 miles on Overland. Then this totally effects our 5 year work program. We have to look at shifting other dollars around in the 3 or 4 years. Some of the things we have to consider,
and I’ll just run through these quickly just so you know the constraints we’re under. The design has to be completed in 7 months on Overland for both sections. Like I said, we have to
live with our preliminary plans, just modifying them to improve the roadway width and get the sidewalks and the bike lanes in there. We do have a very specific sequence that we need
to do timely. What that is, is we have to do the structures; and this holds for either Overland or Franklin. We would probably come in and start doing the structures. By that I mean
the bridges and the culverts where there’s water. They have to start on December 1st of the year they’re scheduled to start and be done by March 15th because of the water in the canals
and the restrictions. Then there may be a month or 2 of gap. There may not, depending on how our right-of-way acquisition goes before we could do the roadways and the intersections.
Again, Overland and Meridian intersection would follow a little later probably in 2005. On Overland Road again, we have to use the existing studies traffic and air quality. Those kinds
of things. We would try very hard to hold only changes not effecting the schedule to be allowed. Our public involvement process, we would still plan on having one. It would just have
to be very quick and modified to get it done. We do have the issue of Idaho Power putting in their major transmission line along the north side of Overland. It would require significant
formation with them and us and possibly some help from you on that. On Franklin Road, the design consideration of course it allows a little bit more time. The western section from East
First to Nola is already under design. Our right-of-way acquisition, we would have more than one year on one hand, on the schedule, but on the other we would have to divert resources
to Overland Road. So, it’s kind of a trade off. Nola to Eagle, it’s currently scheduled to start the design this October and it would follow its normal routine procedure. This is more
for our Commission; we do have the net budget in and (inaudible) 5 year work program impacts. The fiscal year 2001, we’ve already gone ahead and started the survey
on Overland Road from Locust Grove to Eagle in order to meet this schedule. So, that $50,000 is just for the survey. 2002 we have to find roughly half a million. 2003 a little over 900,000.
2004 another million. Then 2005 this frees up about 1.7 million because, all the complicated switches we’re talking about here between the Locust Grove overpass and re-sequencing Overland
and Franklin. In our 5 year work program analysis, and we’re just starting the update on that. A little difficult to say exactly where the (inaudible) project would land until we go
through that process because of course we’ve had other changes occurring in this last year. What it would look like would be a logical thing to do right now is, in 2004, we have currently
scheduled that large intersection, East First, Waltman Meridian and Central to be done. If we’re finishing up on Franklin and everything what would be really, seem to be logical would
be to move that to 2005. That would balance those last 2 years. Like I said, I’m not sure that that would happen but that’s one possibility. In the 2002 budget, we think we can work
that out internally. Then the 2003, we’d have to again do the overall 5 year work program analysis. Overall, the changes in and of themselves without considering the Idaho Power pole
relocation work or any of the other projects that are going on, essentially balance out to zero. Slightly increase right-of-way cost; slightly decreased design and you know a small amount
for the signal at Franklin and Stratford. That’s pretty much the end. The next light I think is the decision time for the Commission for tomorrow night. One other point of information.
We did contact Wendell Bingham at the school district and their construction is essentially going to be complete before 2003. They want a year to allow the sod to settle in. They’ve
got a little bit of road asphalt to lay in the summer. But, it looks like; we were concerned at one point about construction interference between our roadway being torn up and the high
school. It looks like that can be solved and the school district are willing to work with us on those times and we need to you know, interfere a little bit with some of the aspects.
With that we’re open for questions or comments.
Bird: On the bike lanes out there, are they going to be located right next to the roadway like they are on Pine and all that? On Overland?
Levihn: Yes, they’re in the roadway, striped.
De Weerd: I know you have a policy of detached sidewalks and that’s kind of something we like to see you get back to. Can you do a wider sidewalk and just have the bike path there, rather
than in the road?
Bird: In the road?
Levihn: With the limited (inaudible) stay with the 90 foot right of way, if we go back to this one chart. If we followed our policy we would have the 7 foot attached sidewalk. So, you
get the wider sidewalk plus the bike lane, but not the detached sidewalk.
(inaudible discussion amongst Council)
De Weerd: All right. But that is the policy where its detached rather than attached.
Levihn: We have either. We have both sections, a 90 foot and 96 foot in the policy.
(inaudible discussion amongst Council)
Levihn: Steve, if you have any more to comment on the design, just jump in.
De Weerd: Can you do detached on one side? These arterials –
Bird: Even if you attach it, if you widen it Tammy, you’ve got the right idea and put the bikes up there. I don’t like that bikes down on --. I mean, it’s horrible. You go down Pine
Street and you’re --. You know we swerve out into the other lane to get it. I suggest that you go look at any high school and see how many bicycles are parked there.
(inaudible discussion amongst Council)
Brown: Kent Brown, (inaudible). I think most of you know me. What’s going to be there will be a wide sidewalk and plus the bike lanes. There are numerous studies that the best one’s
been done is probably (inaudible) on bicycle facilities. Where you have bicycle facilities that are attached to sidewalks, that’s when you get the most casualties on bicycles because
with them part of a sidewalk, the bicycle is suppose to be like a pedestrian. What happens on those, especially in situations where you don’t have a median down the center of the road,
where you have a left turn lane which is what this is going to have, right? What happens, the bicyclist gets on that, the guy that’s out and making a left hand turn, he’s not watching
to see if there’s a bicyclist over there on the sidewalk. He’s watching to see when he gets a break in traffic. Now, remember, they’re going to go across two lanes. So, suddenly he gets
a break in traffic. He makes his left turn and there’s the bicyclist. When they’re in the road, when you get a class A bicyclist, and they’re acting like cars then he has more of a tendency
to see it like a car and to see that bicyclist. But there’s a lot of studies. The best one I know of was done in Palo Alto California where I personally spent quite a bit of time and
there are a lot of bicyclist and that what it showed. You have those bicycle pathways, they’re not part of the road, that’s when you get the most casualties on bicycles. What is going
to be designed in this situation, you will get both. You’ll still have a wide sidewalk there so the class B or C bicyclists, or kids, they can get up on there and they can be like a
pedestrian. But, if you want to treat bicycles like vehicles, our state law, if you put them in a bicycle lane, it should be in the road.
Bird: I just hope you make them wide enough --. I mean, this out on Pine, you’ve got a wide -- . Your handlebars are practically outside of the lines.
(inaudible discussion amongst Council)
Brown: It’ll be 6 feet (inaudible).
Bird: Yes.
Huber: Yes, one area, because I think we really need to emphasize the compressed schedule. I don’t know about you guys but my experience when there’s a compressed schedule is sometimes
when things don’t go as smooth as you’d like. So, we’ve identified one potential area of concern. We hope that maybe you guys can help us a little bit too. That is getting utility poles
moved. We’re concerned that that’s a potential hang up of not keeping on schedule. We kind of briefly went through some areas today. So, if you can help us in any way on that we would
appreciate it.
(inaudible discussion amongst Council)
Corrie: (inaudible) the power company yet on that?
Peavey-Derr: Katey have you talked to the power company?
Levihn: We did. We had our assistant manager of engineering and he has spoken with them and they are very willing to work with us. We just cannot begin our right-of-way acquisition until
our design is farther along. But, they are willing to work with us and if we have to they’re also willing to kind of (inaudible) in and out depending on where they can get right-of-way
acquisition to try to minimize the relocation of those poles. They’re just not (inaudible).
(inaudible discussion amongst Council)
Unidentified Speaker: I think the ACHD Commission as a whole is determined as much as possible to speed these 2 projects up just as much as we can because of the volume of traffic and
how fast everything is growing and the high school. But, we will be taking the vote on this tomorrow evening between these 2 options; option 1 and 2. I would be very interested to know
if the City Council has a preference between them.
De Weerd: I really do like that (inaudible)
Bird: I Like option 2, too.
De Weerd: I think it just makes a lot more sense getting it done all at once and not having the conflicting --. I really do believe what Katey said, it really would
interrupt our emergency services and we’ll have chaos on both sides of the freeway. It just, to me, makes a lot more sense. It is indeed a high priority I think with the city and having
that school go in that roads are concurrent with the opening of the schools and minimizing the impact of the congestion that’s going to happen over there and the disruption that (inaudible).
We’ve already seen the disruption as it right now, having that road closed for (inaudible) between Locust Grove and Eagle, doing the utility work. It’s the city.
(inaudible discussion amongst Council)
Bird: We know who’s doing that. It’s called a sewer.
De Weerd: We’ve already seen a lot of the impact that it’s going to have. So, I think getting it done in one final swoop is going to have the least amount of impact on the residents
in that area.
Peavey-Derr: To follow up with not only the residents. We had a brief discussion as soon as the decision is made that Larry Sale, our business contact will immediately go to the businesses,
which there’s not too many along there and get them on board. Look at what issues they may have to try and get those resolved.
(inaudible discussion amongst Council)
Bird: -- They’ll be running out there grabbing Larry’s hand.
Peavey-Derr: Kissing him? Oh, good Larry will be happy.
(inaudible discussion amongst Council)
Bird: Really you don’t have that many people to purchase --. There’s not that many landowners between there. You know, you’ve got one or 2 developers that own quite a bit of that frontage,
from Eagle on in that I would think would be happy to do some donating.
(inaudible discussion amongst group)
Corrie: Yes. I haven’t had any problems with option 2 except for one thing. This intersection. You’re going to have 5 lanes going through that intersection. It’s a terrible one now.
If you can see your way at all, some way to get that boosted up because if you’ve got 5 lanes, high school kids everybody taking this road here, that intersection is going to be a death
trap for a lot of (inaudible)
(inaudible discussion amongst Council)
Bird: Its bad right now.
(inaudible discussion amongst Council)
Levihn: We do plan on having temporary measures, like that’s the turning lane there to help out with that need. We just plan on that. It just wouldn’t be you know, completely redone.
Wynkoop: I think the problem is that if we try to put that back into the project with Overland, then it’s going (inaudible).
(inaudible discussion amongst group)
De Weerd: I was just going to add to that concern, I know you mentioned as an option, Corporate Park for 2004. That is such a mess. We have always been hoping that would be bumped rather
than bumped back. That’s effecting I-84 traffic and everything else too. I know you have a lot of juggling to do with budget. WE can sympathize with budget work. But that intersection
gets nastier every day and its certainly going to be one of our safety issues. one of the things that really drove us to put City money into the Locust Grove overpass is because of a
lot of the issues being caused over here and on Eagle as well. Whatever you can do to keep that in there or cause the larger (inaudible) 2003.
Wynkoop: The idea was broached by Commissioner Eastlake at another meeting today. I’ll discuss that at another time.
(inaudible discussion amongst group)
Bivens: I think there was a plan to see if we couldn’t get a double right turn lane at that intersection to help out. The right-of-way doesn’t belong to who we thought it did. So, I’m
not sure that it’s going to work. That would help quite a bit.
Levihn: As you know, all of our decisions take a long, long time, 5 years from beginning to end. Development is further ahead of us than we can manage to catch up. It takes us a while
but in our humble opinion, we really are dedicated and thankful to staff for doing what they have done because we think this is a vast improvement over what was originally planned and
it will save a lot of headache and grief to everybody.
Corrie: I think you’ll make EMS very happy with this. I sit on their board of directors. That’s the biggest concern they have, was Franklin and taking this all the way. We were having
a terrible time. This will be a cakewalk for them (inaudible).
(inaudible discussion amongst Council)
Wynkoop: However we sequence this, we’re going to all get lots of comments about why they’re just building these roads forever because its going to seem to the public that it is taking
forever.
Bird: I think people in Meridian will be out here taking pictures believing, we’re finally getting some roads go up in Meridian. It was 10 years to get North Locust Grove.
De Weerd: Well, and having Overland which has a huge impact residentially as a priority versus Franklin is a very good move forward Meridian and its residents. We appreciate staff coming
up with that and working to try and make sure it gets there.
Levihn: If, by chance, you folks are in total agreement with this and we could use some help, would it be wise of us to drag along Mayor Corrie and have a meeting with Idaho Power to
see if we could have some support on this?
Bird: You bet.
De Weerd: We’ll give you Mayor Corrie.
Corrie: Yes –
Levihn: Would you mind helping us there?
Corrie: I would be happy to.
Levihn: If there’s anything you can do that would be wonderful.
Bevins: I think it would be very advantageous if we do that at the same time. Kind of like they’re doing on North Locust Grove north of Fairview. They’re moving the lines, they’re doing
the construction the whole thing. (inaudible)
(inaudible discussion amongst group)
Bevins: That’s what irritates the folks that I’ve talked to.
(inaudible discussion amongst group)
Wynkoop: -- at their schedule to one location. Then a year later because of the road, move it (inaudible). We’re talking about large poles.
De Weerd: I know at our comprehensive plan meeting that was a huge concern (inaudible) these efforts, roads and utility work and all of it. (inaudible)
(inaudible discussion amongst Council)
Levihn: I know we aren’t able to ask you to vote on this but I think the general consensus is approval of option 2. That gives us enough leeway to proceed tomorrow night. We were going
to go forward on this and we had our meeting on this today. But we didn’t want to do anything that we didn’t pass by you first which would dramatically effect you like this would. So,
we’re thanking you very much for your time and the extra consideration tonight.
Peavey-Derr: Plus we want brownie points.
Bird: You’ve got it.
Levihn: So, we know you have a meeting –
(inaudible discussion amongst Council)
Levihn: We know you’ve got a meeting in just a few minutes so if there isn’t anything else we’ll get out of your hair. Thank you very much for (inaudible).
Bird: Thank you. We really appreciate this.
(inaudible discussion amongst Council)
Bird: We really appreciate it from all of you, from everybody, staff and Commissioners. You guys, this will help us out one tremendous deal.
Levihn: Thank you.
Peavey-Derr: (inaudible) that those 2 mile sections like, especially on Overland, realize we get the school one done. The one to the west would probably take another 2 months, 2 to 3
months to finish. I mean because of the importance of being the school. So, the year long that we show could be 13 to 14 months.
Bird: That’s okay.
(inaudible discussion amongst Council)
Bird: Thank you guys very much.
(inaudible discussion amongst Council)
Bird: You bet.
(inaudible discussion amongst Council)
Bird: We appreciate it. Yes. You don’t have to get beat up anymore.
(inaudible discussion amongst Council)
Bird: Mr. Mayor, I move that we adjourn our workshop with the Ada County Highway District.
McCandless: Second.
Corrie: Motion made and second. All in favor say aye.
MOTION CARRIED: THREE AYES, ONE ABSENT
WORKSHOP ADJOURNED AT 5:04 P.M.
(TAPE ON FILE OF THESE PROCEEDINGS)
APPROVED:
/ /
ROBERT D. CORRIE, MAYOR DATE APPROVED
ATTESTED:
WILLIAM G. BERG, JR., CITY CLERK