Just because we have only a set amount of time, 55 minutes from right now, uh, let's get started with the transit of the April transit report.

Do you want to call the maybe order?

We can't.

We don't have quorum.

So I would I I would love to, but right now we don't have forum.

So uh let's let's get the uh transit report and then we can uh if there are any questions we can move forward from there.

Sandra, are you ready?

Yeah tell me if you want to go back to the other and who didn't have report right.

So every month we provide you with a transit state of transit or transfer report and you would always get it two months backwards.

So we are in June and then the April report and July you get a Mayor report and that's how it goes.

And it's basically a state of our ridership, our effectiveness in terms of wild care are and our completed trips for both fish route and zips and our financial performance.

So I'll go over the fruit of our ridership from January to April, you would see we are our ridership is a bit higher than what they used to be last year.

So the green bars are for 2025 and the bluish is for 2026.

So we seem to be trending a bit outwards this year.

We did our service change in April that caused a few issues because we did some big changes where we moved a few routes from loop sub loop service to bidirectional.

So I would expect that our main ridership would be a bit low, but over time riders are beginning to understand the lead system and it should pick up over the next month.

Um you could also see that the ridership per year right on the right side for 2022.

We were over 900,000, 2023, 304 is been going down.

But looking at the trends for this year, we'd expect that we would be a bit higher than we were in 2025.

Complete our trips is basically how many trips we scheduled and how many we were able to complete.

In a month, we do about 12,000 trips.

So a completion rate of 99.97 is we missing about 120 trips in the month.

Providership pair are for clear agencies like Delou, Makeo, the average they have is 9.3.

For the month of April was 6.5.

Nowhere we want to be, but we are still working to make sure the number is a bit high.

And that's basically how many people are line in our system area.

Our target is somewhere around nine.

We are still on 645, but still that we higher than we were in 2025.

And our goal is is lofty, it's 14.

Yeah.

Is for any person who is unable to use our future service.

So any person with a disability or anybody who would not be able to use a regular system in referred to the flip service.

But our rich ridership for the month of April were around 4,333.

A bit lower than where we were in 2025.

But mobility coordinator demon has been working really hard with our stop contract on ICD to ensure that this number goes up and we are trending in the right direction.

Complete trips and on-time performance for ZIPs was a bit over was not a bit, it was actually over our target of 90%.

And our ridership it's also trending that they have ports whole bubble.

We tended to so last this year.

We are this month we are 2.03 agents as well on TV, and that's where we hope to be.

But we'll be at 6.5.

So we need a bit more.

Are there any surveys that ask like what people are reporting as barriers to riding?

Yeah.

So we do a survey every almost every service change we've done a survey, and that survey is usually well filled out with 400 to 3500 um completions of it.

So pretty good.

And the barriers are they they're they're known, and it's really points towards frequency more than anything.

We do have some conversations around um coverage, but that doesn't seem to align with the majority of those that are filling out the survey data.

Okay.

So the people who are filling out the survey, the people that already utilize the service, correct?

Yeah, so we asked that question if they're a current writer or not a current writer.

And so we get a little bit of both.

The majority are current writers of the system and how they would utilize it more.

Um we'll have another survey going out next month um to cover the next kind of six months of potential service changes that we have throughout the system, but those are constant questions that we ask.

How did those go out?

I've probably filled the survey out.

Um yeah, so the push-up to anybody who's already signed up uh through the the city service or service, okay um receives the email, but also we do um social media posts that we sponsor, um, and we do a notification through the app.

And I would say aside the data we have shaped in our service changes, we use a lot of the responses we get for the surveys to put out to inform our service changes.

So the next change is coming up in fall, sometime October, November this year.

And we would have surveyed this early because it's been a month since we did our latest change.

So we want to see how this change is working, and whatever results we get would inform the changes we did in the fall.

So it's sort of a post check how are we doing and how can we make it better?

Yeah, and we did like Sandra indicated with the spring service changes, had a decrease in ridership specifically on the routes that were shifted from uh loop service to bidirectional.

Um, and that seemed to have a lot to do with confusion on how those routes work.

Um, so we have educated our riders through that.

Uh Laura's worked on some information too that we can include in future transit guides.

So it'll be part of the copy at the beginning of the bus schedule, but we'll include that on the website.

It's for educational on social media as well.

So she worked at three separate messages for that.

Um, and then additionally, um with that we experienced, like Sandra said, when we change those services, we have a lot of deadheading, which is when the bus ends run route, it has to drive across town to go to start another route uh with the increased amount of construction around.

We noticed that we were having pretty poor on-time performance at 6:30 in the morning.

Like they weren't even making it uh an hour and a half to the day before we were running like 18, 20 minutes late uh for some of our routes.

So we re-blocked, um, which meant we re-kind of structured how the drivers would negotiate around our timetables.

Um, and then uh we implemented those blockings what two Sundays ago.

Yeah, and we have seen the increase of about 20% on on-time performance for weekday service.

And so hopefully more on-time buses, a better understanding of the um by direct loop servers to bidirectional will help increase our ridership, but we have noticed um those rides that ridership numbers that had decreased have started to go back up to their previous levels.

What about the flip?

Because I like the right that the route I usually ride went from a loop service.

Because I like the right that the route I usually ride went from a loop service, but no, it went from bidirectional to loop.

And there's I know everybody in my neighborhood has been like this is awful, we hate this.

Like one or two has been around where ridership has decreased over the past two years.

And so previously it was only 10 minutes, writership just wasn't much enough with that in one.

So we change it to every hour.

And then we have to restructure the design just to cover more areas because more complicated that need to give us very ship.

So we have to restructure the route to give us more and loop will cover more areas than what a bidirectional will usually need to route that didn't have enough ridership to make it more efficient.

That's why that change has to be made.

But I hear one.

We would look at it again.

Yeah, and it's probably our route of largest contention.

Yes, I think.

But the those that write are very vocal.

Yeah.

So that doesn't mean we would take the rounds away.

So how can we still provide some level of service but not push a lot of resources into it because it wouldn't match up with the kind of resources that come up?

And it's funny because I live at one of the bus stops, like it's on my corner.

And so I see like I'll see a lot of people who like show up once or twice and they don't show up show up again because the bus is late or it doesn't come, or you know, any number of things.

So I do try to ask, hey, you know what you brand you want to do.

What do you think?

What's going on?

And there's a lot of angst.

When when in April did we make the service change?

23rd, 6th.

Okay.

So that's why.

Because when you said April and we'll see results in May, and the April rhythm, the April ridership was up.

I wanted to know because that obviously did it impact that last part of April too.

There wasn't a big change, but once we were always late, people were tied and stopped writing.

So you would see the biggest change in May.

But we did the reblockings and we assign how the drivers pick the trips.

So we would also see an uptick in June, because the whole of May, we want that particular schedule, which was usually always late.

But now with June, we the first week of June, we saw an uptick in our own time performance.

So May might be like that, and then June might go up again.

It'll be interesting too, because I know like I stopped riding and started biking into work because the weather was nice and there's been a big push, you know, at work.

Um at Mayo for bike to work in June, and then you know, get out and do this.

So yeah, I'd be interested to see what these numbers look like in May too.

I will.

And I will say that that's kind of um that any specific season.

Um Sam, could you scroll back up to that very first page?

It's not like we see a real kind of yeah, there's not one hot season for transit.

Um, well, except for maybe October, September.

Um so it's not like we notice it's um it seems to be pretty static throughout the year.

And so it's also really interesting.

And I like to point out that you know, um, I think there's a lot of pressure and a lot of impetus put on on Mayo ridership on our public transit system, which is a huge component, but it is around 50%.

Um and so 50% of our um other riders are traditional riders that are moving uh throughout the city and not traveling to and from a bigger facility on a regular basis.

So it's just really important for us to look at it as a holistic.

And I think there's uh many opportunities.

I had a really successful call with our RPS earlier today on what our partnership will look like moving forward.

So I'll be able to talk more on that in future CAT committees, but what it looks like with partnering with other agencies in our downtown area as well.

Any questions?

Was that everything?

I just wanted to.

I know I cut you off, so I just wanted to make sure that you had covered everything.

I think I I I you know in a public form like to give um the transit team a lot of um praise on the reaction to the the poor block, not I don't say poor blocking, but the missed blocking maybe um that occurred with that allowed us to kind of we act pretty quickly.

Blocking and bidding takes in itself about three weeks, and so we implemented this change in four.

So from when the service change hit to when we re-blocked and posted this new blocks, it's just a four-week turnaround that things moved really quickly, and that's much quicker um than our traditional service changes do.

I would agree with that, right?

Like just coming from a contracting background, to understand that you guys have a contract that you have to work through to get that adjusted.

That yeah, I would agree that's pretty impressive.

Great.

Um Sam, um Benzina is here.

Uh I will never get your title 100% corrupt, Sam.

Uh I usually tell people I'm the city traffic engineer.

Great, because that's also what I say.

Yeah, same with the analysis public.

Um presented to this committee before, so it's nice to be here.

And yeah, here today to talk about Elvin Close Drive.

And so we don't have a quorum, so we won't be taking action, which is fine.

Yeah, but what I would encourage the committee to do, um, those that are present and and those that are watching this um in the future, um, is potentially at our next meeting after reviewing uh the presentation, we'd love to provide um motion uh of um however the committee feels towards the Elden Holds project.

Yeah, and um happy to just have a conversation.

Um start with a little bit of background.

Um because this has been a topic that we've presented to council before.

Um going so we start all the way back in 2012.

Uh we had a joint city county planning department who adopted Russian area bicycle mastery client.

As far as I know, that was the first time Elton Coast drive was identified as a major city bikeway.

Um in 2016, we had a millin overlay project planned.

So we came up with a payment marking plan to go with it, which we included the payment marking plan to city council.

Uh they pulled Elton Hills out of packet and proved everything else and denied Elton Hills.

So we didn't do the mill and overlay because we didn't have a planary strike, but 2019.

It's council initiative action.

They said they want to go ahead and do the 2016 recommendation.

I started working here in 2017.

I didn't know what that was, so I had to look it up when I saw it.

I didn't think it was a good idea.

So we went back to city council and said you really think we do a traffic study.

Um so that's what we did.

They got updated recommendation that was not what was in 2016, and I have it on the next slide what those were, but um basically we went to a study session, there's no vote, so no action taken, and we deferred the main scan.

Uh 2022, our active transportation plan was adopted, so L was identified as a top 10 all ages and abilities network near term gap, which means that they identified it as a street that could uh pretty easily basically with restriping a lot of buckle project is something that we could add a triple A facility, uh which would be comfortable for anyone to the play plan for eight years old to eight years old that are comfortable riding on that type of facility.

So 2027, we really need to do our momentum overlay project now.

Yeah, so we are going to take this to City Council um June 22nd is another study session.

We're going to be presenting the most options on July 20th, we're asking them to vote.

So that we're gonna spend the winter designing and then reconstruct next year.

So this is what is out there today for the most part.

The East End doesn't have on street parking, like near the rec center.

Um but for the most part, four-line undivided parking on both sides.

Um what was recommended in 2016 was just take out the parking and we'll strike some buttons.

Public feedback things or like anything.

Just put that on the council.

So I'm not surprised that they pulled it out, but that's what it was.

2019, we updated our study.

Um we recommended just well, unofficially at the study session, uh presented this as the leading option.

Um, parking on one side on street bike lanes, both sides, freelanced section and center terminal.

Uh one thing that did come out of that though, we heard a lot about the intersection of West River Parkway.

So we actually budgeted the CIP project in our six-year CIP to replace the traffic signal at West River Parkway.

That just also happens to line up with 2027.

So we're going to do it all at the same time.

So that will be part of the mill as a full traffic signal replacement.

So our goals for this project, primarily, like I said, pavement preservation project.

We got to do this model.

We always have a goal of increasing safety for all users.

So the feedback there, the ideas that we're coming up with are things that we can really do to make it safer and more comfortable for people out there.

Um we are also aligning our sidewalk improvement district.

Um I believe we got a grant cities of the first class grant to upgrade some pedestrian ramps.

So we're gonna update all of the curb ramps along the corridor to be compliant as well.

Some of them are just old bituminous ramps, they're pretty terrible in that neighborhood.

Uh we do have a goal to meet the city's traffic server standard, so that's uh delay queuing.

We're not gonna present anything, but it will be total gridlock.

Um and then I mentioned the traffic signal list of the parkway, uh and then alignment with planning documents.

So all of the stuff listed there has been updated since 2019, and that's really why we wanted to update the whole traffic studies of a lot has changed since 2019.

Uh COVID has impacted travel patterns throughout the community.

Um we have our new uh active transportation plan that replaced the bicycle master plan.

Notchester public schools has their elementary safe route school planning.

There's the Rilcox safety action plan that just came out a few months ago that identifies this as a tier one corridor for them.

Um so a lot has changed.

And we want the current council to have current information so they can make the best decision for having the full.

So I mentioned the safe streets for all safety action plan.

So to be a tier one, um, and it's number three on the list.

So the first was 55th Street Northwest and then 37th Street, and then those.

So to be a tier one, we have to leave these three areas.

There has to be actual historical crash data, like crashes have occurred here.

Um crash profile.

So it's the type of street that typically sees in a lot of crashes.

It has the features of a street where you would expect to see crashes, and that really leads back to the four-lane undivided.

We just don't deny streets like that anymore.

Um, and then also they did a comment mapping where a lot of people clicked on L's and said, I have a concern about this.

So based on public feedback, that's criteria number three.

Um City Rochester Directive Transportation Plan, kind of talked about that already.

Um they identified 10 near-term gaps.

Elton Hills is on the list, not in any priority.

It's the last bullet point, but the list is intentionally not prioritized.

Um yeah, and then all these other road uh planning documents, which I kind of talked about a lot of them.

But so I wanted to talk with you all about what is important to you on this corridor.

I believe there's three routes that operate directly on the corridor, and then a fourth that serves the rec center 25 live area.

I don't know how that's gonna change with the new ramp coming online, but and these are just some conversation starter questions.

So uh in the packet, which I can go to, there are some uh six cross sections in there.

We started off with a lot more, but we've kind of buried down since then.

So there's three four-lane sections and three three-lane sections.

Uh we can pull those up if you'd like, or please.

Four lanes section is so the first one is um including left turn lanes at intersections.

This could also just be a five-lane section.

We just don't have any front street parking, uh, just have a center turn lane the whole way.

So technically kind of have uh seven options here, but option, well, the second option, which in the traffic study we did is alternative three.

Um the four-lane undivided with bump outs at intersections.

So that's what these are meant to indicate is just we do the curve extensions into the parking lane, but not affecting the travel lanes.

So with this one, we would uh more intentionally look at some of our crosswalk locations and try to make improvements to those, but option four.

This was our 2016 recommendation.

So council has asked for this one before.

We didn't want to take it completely off the table.

The three-lane sections.

Oh so one thing I want to point out the four-way section.

We can do four lanes with bike lanes, so we are not sacrificing a lane in order to cram bike lanes in there.

We can we can still do it with four lanes.

So we also can have a three-on-section that does not include bike lanes.

So I don't want to completely make this about whether or not we have bike lanes.

Um we're not we we're not sacrificing the lane to get bike lanes, be clear about that.

But this one is three lanes, center term lane, parking on both sides.

Um so if if this is the one that we move forward with, you know, this would carry through all the way to the east end, all the way to Broadway.

So we get a lot more on street parking over by the Rec Center 2.

Um, this is the 2019 recommendation, three lanes, bike lanes on both sides, parking on one side.

Then this is another one that actually was not part of 2019.

This was a new idea.

So three lanes, parking on one side and two-way buffer cycle track on one side.

So it's a six-foot pendant buffer.

I believe it's yeah, 10 10 feet of bike lanes and then a two-foot gutter.

Uh so almost 18 feet for the for the bike facility over there.

So it's pretty separated from traffic.

Um would probably be on the north side.

There are bus stops on both sides of the house.

So something we'd have to consider is where exactly does the bus stop if we were to put like a raised eye within the painted buffer, or there's a break somewhere where the bus can pull all the way over to the curb.

Um buses do stop in lots of bike lanes on other streets, so it wouldn't be totally out of line for the pull over the curve.

So based on the sense of the what's going with the initial plane is the 2019 two lanes, two bike lanes and the center lane, because that's that's being listed as the plane, and these are alternates to the plane.

Um, there is no plan yet.

Okay, so we're going to present options to city council and talk through the number of lanes, uh, whether or not they want to include bike facilities, whether or not we should have parking, and if so, then is that one side or both sides?

Um and then we also asked we were asking them a question about the traffic signal like 14th Avenue and considering whether it could be better in 15th Avenue.

So we're we're gonna talk through those like key decision points, and then based on that feedback, kind of narrow down which one checks the most boxes.

So what should be the one that you feel as though your department feels is the most viable option?

Um so at this point in time, so the traffic study is done.

Um I would say so.

Talking through those key decisions, uh the number of lanes, like I said, we really don't design the four-lane undivided roads anymore.

Three lanes will work, like I said, it means our traffic server standards would not cause gridlock or massive amounts of delay and QA, it will work.

So three lanes is probably going to be the recommendation for the number of lanes.

Uh on street parking, you know, uh this the parking that's out there is pretty underutilized.

I think it can fit on one side of the street, but some of the feedback we heard was pretty clear that there's a lot of single car garages out there.

A lot of people do need that kind of thing.

So we think parking should be at on at least one side, if not both sides, and then bike facilities.

Um if we're going to do it, probably the two-way cycle track would be the way to do it.

So I would say what's shown on the screen here, probably either the first option or the third option.

The leading options for that were looking for the most feedback on from the first option again.

So I assume that was not the first option because it said two.

Yeah, like I said, the the numbers align with how it was numbered in the traffic site.

But so the first one wouldn't have the bicep the bike bike lanes.

And the do we have any of the other two-way bike lanes in town?

Not currently.

Um center street, it would be the first one, East Center Street, or the two recycle track on the north side of the street in front of the river to 11th at the moment.

Uh we'll probably have some with our reimagining Sixth Avenue project that is going to be getting started next year.

So we we will start seeing more and more don't have any yet.

Um still have two alternate sides in the winter, which they do now.

But with this lane configuration, it would also be a lot easier for people to cross the street at any point in the corridor.

Do just better snow removal or um what do you think?

Well, like the road, the road narrow because of all the mature trees that are along the entire way, snow doesn't actually go anywhere, it just it continues into the street to the point where the the right lane is it doesn't exist.

You have to really be driving out of the device that's wedged out from the snowflow both.

I mean, with this with this option, they're still parking on both sides.

I don't see that changing appreciably.

Um I will say with you know, with parking on one side with either one of these four options, um, you can always park on that one side.

So the the seasonal restrictions don't apply when there's parking on one side, they can always park over there.

Um that might make it more difficult for the plows to get all the way up to the curb.

So since this has been discussed since 2016 and it's been kind of tabled because I'm assuming that you're very aware of that it's very uh hotly contested opportunities visit to the general public, not visited with the general public completely not related to any role within the commission here, but uh it's do you feel that it will be successfully put through or will it be modified to just resurface and still as is.

I mean, we're gonna ask them to vote on something because we we need to know an overlay, and when we remove everything, we have to put something back.

So we we need them to make a decision.

Will this widen the road roadway at all?

No, no, no, the curves are staying where they are.

Um there might be certain spots where we could do like a bump out, like even in this scenario where there's parking on one side, we could have a curve extension in the parking lane.

Um so we're looking for opportunities where we can improve pedestrian business in select spots, but we're not doing the whole corridors, not a full reconstruct.

And that um like at bus where there are bus stops, there could be those bump outs too, right?

To kind of improve because the bus is gonna have to stop somewhere, right?

So then one of those lanes it comes to stop, the traffic's gonna back up behind it.

I'm thinking, but uh if there's a curb, like there's a curb bump out, people could exit directly onto that.

They can tell you buses do stop in the street all over the place.

I mean, northern Broadway, they stop in the lane.

Um we have nearly 800 bus stops, and we do not have 800 shelters, so the majority of our bus stops are shipped in the road.

Now, where there's a parking lane, you know, we we could restrict parking at the bus stop and give the bus plenty of space to pull all the over the curb.

Um it would be like I said, a little trickier with a single track, especially if um council wants to see some sort of physical barrier separating traveling bikes.

That's something we really have to think through how how buses are pulling up to that.

It does create a commitment to bus stops and if we create any system you have to start here to support them.

So if you if you do this variant that we we have up the double bike lane makes it more difficult for a bus to stop on that side.

Well again, if if council wants to see some sort of physical barrier second.

Okay.

Do we just make them stop in the lane?

And then how do we get people across the bike lane, or do we put a gap in the barrier so the bus control the way over to the curb?

I don't know if you have any thoughts on what you would want to see there.

I think that in other localities I've seen like an island, like a traffic island.

So the bus would pull up at the you know it'd be curb height traffic island, and people could step down and have a place to stand on before they crossed the bike space, the bike lanes.

Yeah, they step onto that and wait for the bus to pull away and you know cross the street the other direction as well.

So and it doesn't necessarily have to be you could have it painted like that, just at certain curb cuts, you'd have that traffic island.

The traffic island be in the buffer.

That's an option, Sam and I and Sandra had discussed.

So when are you intending to take this to council?

Study session on June 22nd.

Is it two with the two-way cycle track?

Is I was reminded by a very aggressive cyclist that bicycles are cars or recognizes the same as cars.

How will they make the proper turns across all lanes of traffic at intersections?

Um, there's multiple ways you could do that.

They they can take the lane, they can ride in the lane.

Um or they can make it uh like a two-stage crossing through they would cross the intersection and then just pivot left and wait to move straight across that way.

Um traffic lights are there along this section of Mountain Hills?

West River Parkway and so just the two.

Just the two.

I've seen in other places where I've seen the two-way bike lanes, they sometimes put the like bike stop zone at the stop lights so that people can come up and then they can move out ahead of the traffic to be able to make their left when the lights are red.

Yeah, so that's I think you're talking about a bike box, which is what we have at Fourth Street Southwest and First Avenue.

I'm not familiar with that the area, but yeah, so that'd be a I mean a one-stage bike box.

Um there is also a two-stage bike box where like I said, you're continuing through on the green light, and then there's a green area on the opposite side where you can just turn wait for that light to turn green and turn out that way.

Sure, okay.

I think so.

With the changing to one lane through two lanes, what would that do in the way of wait times that the lights are like to the frontage road from heading westbound on Elton Hill drive?

Uh with currently two lanes, it's not uncommon that if I'm driving on that road, I will do at least four light cycles waiting to get through the light.

Uh which intersection?

The intersection to the frontage road, like uh super scoring super America.

So it's one of those circumstances will one lane versus two lanes put that lane even further back because I mow past that curve into the residential part of the neighborhoods.

Um so you know, even on the agenda here, the the asphalt pavement actually stops about 500 feet east of a CC drive and these front or an intersection.

So there would be a transition where before you get to the the front, it would open back up to two lanes again.

Okay.

Well before you get there.

So have you gotten any feedback on four lane from or I'm gonna call this three lane, uh three-lane or four-lane, like from the neighborhood and what the thoughts are on parking on both sides, neither side, uh, one side.

We did so we had a neighborhood meeting on May 20th.

Um, and I pulled that move side up.

So if you if you go to the city calendar, navigate to page one, you can find our uh all of the meeting materials are in here.

We did have a survey that was here.

The link doesn't work anymore.

Um, because I need to consolidate everything and be ready for my study session presentation.

Um, but yes, we we do have survey results.

Um it was it was pretty split.

So split between what um people that wanted to stay the same and people that wanted to change the three lines.

Um a lot of support for five lanes also, which you know, even reading through the comments, like it's very clear people are supportive of the center term lane in some fashion.

So did they did they have thoughts on like how the bike lanes are set up, whether it is the double bike lane or the bike lanes on either side?

Was there was that part of the feedback too?

Yeah, so one of the questions was do you support providing space for bikes or not?

And if so, uh a two-way cycle track on one side or or one-way bike lanes on your side.

That was one of the questions.

Uh so I don't I don't want to give you my whole study session first.

No, that's that's that's I do want to focus on the trans stuff, but well, and that's important too.

That's what I was gonna ask.

Is the impacts of or why I was gonna ask, is the impact of the double bike lane significantly different than what we would see if we had bike lanes on both sides from a transit perspective?

So from a transit perspective with bike lanes on both sides.

Um so with this option, or there's a two-foot buffer, uh probably not even wide enough to put in our flexible millennium posts in there.

So there wouldn't really be any protection uh separating the motor vehicles from the bike lanes.

So in this scenario, it would be much easier for the buses to just pull over the curve.

What's the um plan speed limit?

Uh no changes.

So it's 30 minutes three.

It's 30, but people go for 45 on there.

But I mean, you know, you know that is not so that anyway.

I mean, part of our goal is to with the shrinking of lanes.

But we're not planning on lowering the speed.

Do you want them to drive?

Yes.

So this option, and and there's bus stops on both sides, correct?

Okay.

So this option is the it is the most transit friendly, that the first option, or would a different option be more transit friendly?

Um I mean, with this option, there would never be a parked car on one side of a prevention for getting over the curb.

Like with either one of them though, you know, if there's a problematic area where people keep parking in front of the bus stop, uh, we can put up signs to restrict parking by the bus stand.

I thought is the less parking, the more transit-friendly it's going to be.

I I concur, I concur wholeheartedly with with that statement, the less parking, the more transit-friendly it is.

Uh I was working for the chamber at the time that this was rejected previously.

So I have a understanding of what it is, and the reduction in parking for the people who live on the street is quite problematic.

Uh so that's why I asked the question that I had before, but obviously here we're thinking about it from a transit perspective, and when we're thinking about it from a transit perspective, like you said, the less parking, the better off it is.

So if we have one side that doesn't have any parking at all, uh that's gonna be more transit friendly.

I'm not like super familiar with the area.

Sorry, I'm just an intern.

Is does the amount of houses is that like is this like a neighborhood where it is all houses and that affecting the parking of people that live in these houses?

Is that I guess gonna be that big of a deal?

Or is this like a pretty busy street where you're getting a lot of cars on this regularly, like a lot of bus stops?

Because it's like at what point do you prioritize the commuters and the people riding the buses and the bikers over the I don't know if that's like a bad question, but you know, I mean, no, that's a great question.

I think you know, if we want to drive try and put forward policies that are going to drive ridership, right?

Then less you're recommending something that has less parking is going to generally push the people towards looking at what other options are there, and then you know, we can help to provide hey, you know, yes, you're getting less parking, but these are the bus routes, and here's you know, educational route.

So, like at what point do you choose to push out biking over parking?

And it's like, okay, well, parking having more parking might make the people that live on that road happier, but what's gonna make the majority of people that are using the road more satisfied?

Well so if you're if you're looking at I mean it'll be different when the when the road is redone, but having parking at both sides of the road, if you are driving on that road is incredibly it feels very dangerous.

So from that perspective, you know, I can I can see what it was, but as you can see, somewhat from from here, there's a lot of houses on both sides of the road.

So and that's you know, this is an older more traditional neighborhood.

So you have a lot of houses that are on there, and you know all the low density places are schools, yeah.

Correct.

There's several schools, schools and churches, right?

Which and they also have a you know safe route, you know, they've got the whole same routes to school program to improve all of their traffic flows and get traffic to slow down.

So I can I can kind of walk through the court really quick.

But so starting at the east front of the road slash CC Drive to the south.

Um 500 feet to the it's almost actually northwest, but I'm gonna call it the east.

Um that's where the concrete stops and the the asphalt starts.

So the villain overlay starts there.

So somewhere before after that is where we have to transition.

Uh to this whole area, a lot of driveways, skinny driveways, single car garages.

That one looks like they recently widened their driveway to a lot more parking.

Probably they don't like parking on the street.

I wouldn't either.

Um, this is where there's a signal at 14th Avenue.

Um, we were questioning if it would be better served at 15th Avenue because it actually serves the parking lot and the school traffic.

Whereas what we're hearing though is that 14th Avenue is important to the people that live south of Elden Hills.

It's also better for kids walking to school and crossing Elden Hills Drive.

So we'd probably be recommending to keep it at 14th Avenue.

But it will be it will need to be replaced at some point.

Um again, a lot of a lot of houses along here.

This is the Lutheran School, which doesn't have a district, so to speak, anybody can go to school there.

So not a lot of walkers.

They I think they have maybe a half dozen kids that walk to school or um the rest of them all get driven from wherever they live.

They don't even have their own buses.

I think some of them might actually use an MPS bus, not sure.

But I mean, you can see when you're looking at that the density of the homes on this route.

So obviously thinking about the thinking about the people who live on that road is important as well.

Then we also have to look at transit and safety and what the goals of the city are and the uh goals of the city is making things more bike friendly, which generally speaking does not make the neighborhood happy either, because whatever whatever takes away parking and makes it uh but yeah, it'll be it'll be interesting.

I'd never seen that that double bike lane before.

I thought that was really interesting.

Yeah, yeah.

So I'm pointing out where is another signal here?

But it is pretty clear reading the surveys about who lives on the street or even in the neighborhood versus who just drives through.

If they're just driving through, it's oh yeah, five lanes, no parking.

We just want to get through as fast as they can, but it is a residential street.

Live there and they gotta park their car seminars.

Where are the people driving through, or are they just getting trying to get across town?

Is that what well I mean it's data on that?

Oh I mean, the neighborhood itself is big.

So I think a lot of them do actually live in the neighborhood, they're just not on the street, they use it to get from Broadway to out of wherever.

It's not an efficient road because it curves a lot.

So a lot of times you can also go up one more 52, you exit the like target the 37th and 37 over and then you backtrack is faster than actually taking that road.

Yeah, and I can tell you that uh you know, 9th Avenue is a pretty good shortcut to get from 37th Street all the way over to West Circle Drive that we go through.

But I think a lot of people are doing that.

Um they did an urgent destination analysis with this updated traffic study, and I believe they had said that um only one in one in five are just coming through.

Most people do actually live somewhere in the neighborhood, which again is a larger neighborhood.

But as I'm walking through the corridor here, you know, once you get closer to the east end towards the river, it gets a lot more commercial.

Um no long street parking down through here.

I I live in Northeast, so I'm familiar with this area and a little bit in that commercial district, just not as I don't have a reason to go through that neighborhood, so I don't um have we talked about like micro routes, like neighbor like small neighborhood bus routes that could help with traffic through the area.

So right now we have some kind of future plans and ideas of what introducing microtransit might look like and uh within the city.

There are a couple of catalytic uh projects that have to happen between now and investigating that.

One is bringing on Link BRT.

So we're just uh kind of trying to focus on all of our underties on bringing on that mode instead of investigating bringing on another mode at the same time.

Additionally, we are at the um in the last year of our TDP, our transit development plan.

Um, and so our TDP is an outline uh what would happen in the next five years, and so we'll be entering in the next five-year planning phase for transit in which we've outlined the incorporation of uh microtransit within uh certain neighborhoods within the city, um, but we don't have that uh kind of forecasted master plan yet.

So looking at this, uh and obviously we can't we don't have quorum, so we can't make a recommendation of a full recommendation today, but going to the going to three lanes and you know I think the double bike lane is probably the the right way to do it from a from a from a transit standpoint because it gives additional, but if you block that area off and there's a physical barrier there, that might make it that might make it harder.

But if we're looking at encouraging transit and encouraging biking, if we find a way to put some gaps so uh the bikes or the the buses can get in there, I think that would be good.

Yeah, and I will say, you know, the the majority of the corridor does have a lot of driveways, so there will be a lot of gaps in whatever type of barrier system that put up, which is gonna be one of the challenges with that option.

So creating another uh spot for transit access would something that we definitely want to do.

If we just did a striped barrier though, that you know that would be far less proud problematic from a bike bike lane or biking and transit perspective and cars that the people that live on the street.

Yeah, I think the the bicycle advocates would push for some sort of physical barrier to improve their own level of comfort.

So competing needs.

Yep.

less pro problematic from a bike bike lane or biking and transit perspective and cars that the people that live on the street yeah I think the the bicycle advocates would push for some sort of physical barrier to improve their own level of comfort so computing needs yep which is what makes projects like this so difficult and it's also the reason that we're 10 years from when this originally started we started this discussion I just want to be thoughtful of time and we are two minutes from one can I ask the transit team the stops that are on they're not for stops or just pick up just pick up the job stopping in the lane is not uh huge from your perspective we would with these our arms to pick up people get in on the we chair so that might be the only limitation if there'll be enough space to use their own time pick up people that spoken in the main we've spoken so many things in town so does the ramp that'll go all the way down to the street right yes come on the ability to deploy um on a curve or down to the street okay so anybody has any other feedback having here before we go to city council thanks Sam thank you Sam so obviously anybody can leave whenever whenever but uh I did make a statement that I was gonna try and get us out of here on an hour all the time so we are at an hour but not possible and I did hear back from Parker I shot I shot him a message and he got married so we said oh well that's fair so I would have brought it up specifically but we were talking about it anyway Jesse sent me a note about this and he basically said we need to find a way to make it as safe for pedestrians as possible like crosswalks and things like that so I think that's the ultimate goal is to make the entire stretch as safe as possible for everybody who's traveling on it right so because your the routes are whoever rides the bus and coming back across the street some yeah great thanks to you thanks yes that's it okay great time after your um study session when do you think it'll go to council with a recommendation for a vote or you say July he did say July July 20th okay when we're expected so if we wanted to um at the July meeting we can um vote on uh formal uh uh recommendation uh it's the recommended so please see is after the June 22nd um site session as long as it's uh if you want me to incorporate it into the council I can like a couple weeks in advance yeah I don't know when your next meeting the second Friday of the month so we'll be on time okay perfect thank you thank you all right thank you everyone and I would recommend putting