Transportation Board Special Meeting - June 22, 2026: Ashley Pond Safety Improvement Design Recommendation
Transportation Board Special Meeting - June 22, 2026
On Monday, June 22, 2026, the Los Alamos County Transportation Board held a special meeting at 5:30 PM in the Municipal Building Council Chambers to consider a recommendation to the County Council for the Ashley Pond Safety Improvement Design. The board received a presentation from Jennifer Morrow, Senior Engineer, on three preliminary concepts for permanent barriers to prevent vehicles from entering Ashley Pond Park from Trinity Drive. After discussion, the board unanimously voted to recommend Concept 3 (natural boulders) to the County Council.
Discussion Items
- Presentation by Jennifer Morrow: Morrow explained the need for a permanent safety barrier following the temporary use of concrete Jersey barriers during the 2025 and 2026 summer concert seasons. Three concepts were developed by Groundworks Studio: Concept 1 (pier-style bollards that can be used as seats, ~$75,000), Concept 2 (combination of planters and piers, ~$120,000–$130,000), and Concept 3 (natural boulders with in-ground native plantings, ~$120,000). A public survey launched on June 4, 2026, and closing on June 28, 2026, had received 507 responses at the time of the meeting: 69% preferred Concept 3, 18% Concept 2, and 13% Concept 1. The Historic Preservation Advisory Board had already expressed a preference for Concept 3, while the Parks and Recreation Board supported whatever the public chose.
- Board Questions and Discussion:
- Board members inquired about the anchoring of boulders, maintenance requirements (e.g., graffiti resistance, irrigation), and spacing (five-foot gaps between boulders to block vehicles).
- One member noted that 19-inch-tall bollards (as in Concept 1) would be insufficient to stop SUVs at 35 mph; the natural boulders, embedded 6–12 inches and roughly 4 feet tall, would provide better crash protection.
- Morrow clarified that the design details (e.g., exact boulder dimensions, anchoring) would be finalized after selecting a concept.
- A member asked why the barrier was not placed on the sidewalk; Morrow explained that Trinity Drive is a state highway, and NMDOT would require breakaway barriers in the right-of-way due to liability concerns, so the barrier is placed on the park side.
- Discussion also touched on the planned road diet for Trinity Drive, which will include a bike lane, median, and bus turnout, adding pedestrian protection.
- Public Comment: No public comments were made, either in person or online.
Key Outcomes
- Motion: Board Member Muck moved to recommend Concept 3 (natural boulders) to the County Council. The motion was seconded and passed unanimously.
- Next Steps: The board’s recommendation, along with those from the Historic Preservation Advisory Board and Parks and Recreation Board, will be presented to the County Council on June 30, 2026, to authorize final design and installation. The goal is to have the permanent barrier installed before the 2027 summer concert season.
Meeting Transcript
Chair Hampton. Member Lazowski, Member KleidMath, and Member Chappelle. Thank you. Members Connolly and Edwards are absent, although I think Member Edwards might join us later. Is there any public comment for items not on the agenda? And I see no public, so I'm gonna say no. And no one's showing us online, right? Not at this time, Mr. Chair. Thank you. Right, is everybody okay with the agenda? Um Mr. Chair, just to note that um the uh public comment for items not on the agenda isn't printed on the agenda. So if you want to have that, obviously there's no public comment, but it does look like we are having one attendee being admitted. So all right. Um would someone like since we're many men in the agenda, and I already have because I asked the question. Um do we someone want to make a motion that includes the amendment I don't know if I have to push this button. Yeah. Okay, all right. So move. Is that okay or do you want us to state it? We got that. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Um, all in favor. Passes unanimously. And with that, first presentation or only presentation. Hi everyone, I'm Jennifer Morrow, and I'm with the Public Works Engineering Group. And I'm here to talk to you about bollards. Umfortunately, in today's day and age, it's not uncommon for us to turn on the TV and to see where a road departure has resulted in a fatality or a severe injury for pedestrians, whether the uh road departure was intentional or unintentional. And at Ashley Park, we all know that we have large gatherings, especially with the music in the park, and we have festivals there and fairs, and it's it's just a kind of marquee location of this uh Los Alamos County. And so um just to ensure that we kept the safety of the public in mind. We started with the Jersey barriers, and apparently those didn't go over well with the public. There were quite a few complaints, and uh they were always a temporary solution. And so we started looking into permanent uh bollard solutions. Um I quickly learned that there's more about bollards than I can ever kind of come to terms with. And uh after several conversations, luckily Ann Aren't said, why don't we get a landscape architect in? And I thought, oh, what a great idea. This is not a job for an engineer. So um we hired um uh ground studios to do to evaluate and look at some bollard designs. And uh they came up with three designs that we have put out for uh uh a survey. Can you bring up that first design? And um so we the survey uh went into effect on uh June 4th, and it will go through June 28th. And here's the first option. This is what we're calling the peer option. They are ballers that can be utilized as seats, so they have uh two functions. Uh they do have an engineered foundation to them. This is the view you see from the sidewalk, and if you'll scroll, you can see the view of those bollards looking up from the pond, and then we can scroll on to the next one and see the view from the roadway. And here we've jumped into the second option. Um you can go ahead and go with the second option.
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