City of Santa Fe Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee met Oct. 12.
Here are the minutes provided by the committee:
1. CALL TO ORDER
The meeting was called to order at 5:31pm by Chair Michael Garcia.
2. ROLL CALL
Members Present:
Members Excused:
Chair Michael Garcia
Member Yolanda Eisenstein
Member Judith Gabriele
Member Tony Gerlicz
Member Ben Pingilley
Member Khal Spencer
Member Erik Aaboe
Member Angela Bordegaray
Member Steve Pilcher
Member Dan Painter
Others Attending:
None
3. APPROVAL OF AGENDA
a. Motion: Member Painter moved, seconded by Member Aaboe to approve the Agenda as amended.
Amendments: Moved to remove Agenda Items 6.b & 8.b
Clarification on 7.c Member Pilcher is in attendance tonight.
Vote: The motion was approved on the following:
For: Chair Garcia, all those in favor say “Aye”[everyone said “Aye”], all those opposed say “No” [no one said “No”].
Against: None
Abstain: None
4. APPROVAL OF MINUTES
a. September 14, 2023 minutes
b. Motion: Member Pilcher moved, seconded by Member Spencer to approve the minutes as amended.
Amendments: Moved to amend the following
pg. 6, 8.c Technical Review (should be “Erik” Aaboe; not “Erick” Aaboe) st st
pg. 6, 8.c 1 paragraph 1 line (should be Engineer “Oralynn Guerrerortiz”; not Engineer “Ortiz”)
pg. 7 8.c 2nd paragraph, (should be “removable bollard”; not just a “bollard”)
pg. 5 Member Pilcher’s and Member Bordegaray’s questions, [Response were not captured]
Vote: The motion was approved on the following:
For: Chair Garcia, all those in favor say “Aye” [everyone said “Aye”], all those opposed say “No” [no one said “no”].
Against: None
Abstain: None
5. COMMUNICATIONS FROM THE PUBLIC (2 minutes maximum)
a. Jennifer Webber on the board of Bike Santa Fe
Early September we conducted our regular bike valet at Zozobra and we checked a record number of 150 bikes in, at the event. Plus some unicycles, scooters and we also checked strollers.
Published in the New Mexican that highlighted the need for more transportation options in town, other than cars. We had a great response to that.
We partnered with Joean Cocteau Cinema to host a sold out showing of the movie called “The Engine Inside”. We also had a bike valet at that event.
We hosted a bike valet just last week for more than 30 riders, Ben you rode your bike to the event. It was the Home Wise Livability series, with Henry Grabar author of “Paved Paradise” how parking explains the world.
As part of our educational efforts as a 501c3 for the first time we sent candidate questionnaires to all City council candidates, with a great response with 80% of the candidates responding.
On Tuesday we are hosting our first ever candidate Forum with City council candidates.
Member Pilcher: Where will that candidate forum be?
Jennifer Webber:It’s at the Community Room at the Commons on Alameda, 2300 West Alameda it starts at 6:00pm.
6. SUBCOMMITTEE COMMUNICATIONS
a. Policy, Planning and Law (Yolanda Eisenstein, Chair)
Where are we with the Land Use Code rewrite, our subcommittee was supposed to be in the loop?
Romella Glorioso-Moss answered: What I understand that Land Use has asked SFMPO and Public Works to develop the guidelines for roadways, trails, streets, sidewalks, crosswalks and that is lead by City Traffic Engineer and SFMPO. What I remember when you met with Ms. Wolfenbarger a few months ago, they will involve BPAC when they develop the guidelines.
b. Promotion, Education and Programming (Judith Gabrielle, Chair)
c. Technical Review (Ben Pingilley, Chair)
Scheduling a meeting to review the traffic circle on Paseo Del Sol there were some configurations.
7. COMMUNICATIONS FROM OTHER AGENCIES (5 minutes maximum)
a. Santa Fe Metropolitan Planning Organization (Erick Aune, AICP, Director)
b. Santa Fe Conservation Trust (Tim Rogers, Trails Program Manager)
c. Public Safety Committee (Khalil Spencer, BPAC Vice-Chair)
Nothing directly related to this committee at the last meeting.
Member Pilcher-Does your committee get reports on accidents? I think it was a month or two ago that bicyclist was killed. Does this committee have any way of getting information of what exactly appears to have happened?
Vice Chair Spencer-Generally we don’t get individual reports like that. We get compilations every quart, what we generally get is the case of the month from the police one or two of those, major incidents from the Fire Department and Health & Safety. If there is an interest I can bring it up and ask for a report from the police. Generally the police report is a serious crime.
8. DISCUSSION AND POSSIBLE ACTION ITEMS
a. Crosswalk Guidelines and New Concepts in Traffic Calming (Jeanne Wolfenbarger, PE, City Traffic Engineer)
One of our main focuses right now is developing a Complete Streets manual which helps with priorization of bicycle and pedestrian facilities. With that I thought I would like to focus on what we are doing developing crosswalks guidelines, mainly for mid block crossings and uncontrolled intersections as well talk about new concepts of traffic calming as part of a recent neighborhood study. First, I’ll talk about selecting crosswalk locations, again this is for mid block crossings, uncontrolled intersections, signalized intersections. There’s alot of engineering judgment that goes into these, cause as you know they have to be chosen wisely and safely, so I am going to cover some of the major criteria. One of these is pedestrian crossing demand generally you want to look at, how much demand there is at the crosswalk and a lot of guidelines point to about 20 pedestrians in an hour or 15 elderly pedestrians and or children. This is not the only criteria because often times you have to put in the crosswalk in for people to feel safe enough to use it or additional facilities to encourage it’s use. Also we look at distance of the nearest crosswalk which is over 300 feet obviously we don’t want to put to many crosswalks. We looked at context does it serve as a multiuse trail connector or is it a direct route to a destination such as a transit facility, school or hospital. Adequate sight distance is one of the most important things. Roadway geometry such as vertical curves and horizontal curvature and eliminating parking spaces, and trees right around the cross walk itself. Last but not least, speed limit 80 percentile speed, generally it’s safe to put them in areas where there is a lower speed limit.
We have counter measures such as improve nighttime lighting, high visibility crosswalk markings, not the normal transverse markings that you see but the latter types of markings that you’ll see at schools that highlight the crossing it’s self. Raised crosswalk which helps to slow vehicles, similar to a speed table. A road diet which is, changing the road from four lanes to three lanes and adding bike lanes, that helps as well. Pedestrian hybrid beacon I wanted to illustrate that is the most conservative measure we would only put it in, if it’s warranted. Another words you have enough pedestrians there or roads with higher speed or multi lanes 4-6 lanes. So basically again what this is, it stops a vehicle similar to a traffic signal it’s simply meant for pedestrians only. With that we will be developing much stronger guidelines on crosswalks, on how to develop that because throughout the City it is very important that we have connectivity, throughout the City, for pedestrians.
Next thing we were doing with SFMPO, was a safety study based on public perception in an area pacifically around Camino Carlos Rey and SE of Cerrillos Rd. What we did was something unique, the SFMPO lead that and I helped them develop a report for that. It’s a study based on public perception a public survey it was very heavily focused on an alternative of traffic calming options. Alternatives other then just looking at vertical speed devices, such as speed humps.
I was going to cover answers to questions that were submitted by BPAC. Q: Developing a database for sharrows and BMFLU signs?
At the moment the City is in the process of coming up with a plan for developing a database for everything.
Q: Is there a plan for BMFLU signs installation priorization and weather or not it will replace sharrows?
At the current time there are some BMFLU signs being put up by the maintenance department to replace the shared road signs. I believe they captured all of them but that is their focus right now. There isn’t any plans to develop anymore.
Q: Effectiveness of sharrows?
I did some research on the effectiveness of sharrows and I realized there is alot of mixed opinions, about that. I feel the sharrows are most effective on lower speed roads rather the higher speed roads. Looking at narrow roads as well, if the road is narrow enough it’s most effective on that. Finding roads were we can implement bike lanes and develop a trail system
Q: Pedestrian zone signs?
Those are basically all over the downtown area historic area of the City were we tend to have alot of heavy pedestrian traffic, they were put there along time ago. I do see benefit to having them there to alert drivers, especially since there are heavily used by pedestrians and continue to be used. They tend to be put on lower speed roads, we won’t be changing speed limits. The objective moving forward will be to improve sidewalk facilities if we can in some of these areas.
Q: Calle Mejia
In addition to putting in pedestrian bicycle facilities or mainly bike lanes on Calle Mejia, we are doing an alignment study. It has all sorts of traffic problems associated with it. Since the State eliminated one of the access points of 285 due to road safety reasons. We did meet with a consultant this morning to come up with a proposal on Calle Mejia to look at the traffic issues as a whole.
I would like to add we are doing Road Rehabilitation throughout the City, as we do that we are looking at opportunities to narrow roads with stripping as well as adding buffer bike lanes. So right now the roads we are talking about are Rodeo from Camino Carols Rey to Yucca. Then Yucca from Rodeo Rd to Zia Rd. narrowing the lanes to 10 feet and adding in the buffer bike lanes.
b. Comments on NMDOT’s Project US 84/285 (St. Francis/ St. Michael’s) Interchange Study (Erick Aune, AICP, SFMPO Director)
The SFMPO has been involved in the pre-design of St. Mikes and St. Francis interchange for about 6 years and about 5 years ago NMDOT hired a consultant to have them derive what is called phase 1.a study that looked at bringing fourth a multitude of alterative designs. In there opinion the bridge needed to be replaced which lead to this epic project.
Motion: Member Spencer moved, seconded by Member Aaboe to amend letter with additional language insertion
The multi-use path along the southeast quadrant of the interchange should be investigated for extending a leg off of it that would travel under or over the two proposed ramps and then parallel St. Francis Dr. on the overpass though separated from the roadway by a physical barrier.
VOTE: The motion was approved on the following Roll Call Vote:
For: Member Bordegaray, Member Eisenstein, Member Painter, Member Pilcher, Chair Garcia
Against: Member Aaboe, Member Pingilley
Abstain: Vice-Chair Spencer
Motion: Member Aaboe moved, seconded by Member Painter to approve amended letter
For: Member Aaboe, Member Bordegaray, Member Eisenstein, Member Painter, Member Pilcher, Member, Pingilley, Member Vice-Chair Spencer, Chair Garcia
Against: None
Abstain: None
c. Bike-Friendly Community Data Tracking (Steve Pilcher, BFC Task Force Chair)
Motion: Member Vice-Chair Spencer moved, seconded by Member Eisenstein to update Strategic Plan with Member Pilcher’s report.
VOTE: The motion was approved on the following Roll Call vote:
For: Member Aaboe, Member Bordegaray, Member Eisenstein, Member Painter, Member Pilcher, Member Pingilley, Member Vice-Chair Spencer, Chair Garcia
Against: None
Abstain: None
d. Staff Liaison Report (Romella Glorioso-Moss)
Reporting status of Capital Projects for Streets Roadways and Trail, we have 23 Streets, Roadways and Trails projects. Which 12 are roadway projects, 6 are intersection improvement projects, 4 trail projects and 1 way finding project. Of those 23 projects 3 are BPAC projects, what does that mean they originated from BPAC.
9. MATTERS FROM STAFF
10. MATTERS FROM THE COMMITTEE
a. Member Aaboe we have a section in the recurring agenda Communications From Other Agencies, to ask SFMPO to be added to the agenda and be a routine part, to broaden our outreach.
11. MATTERS FROM THE CHAIR
a. Chair Garcia update on Resolution still with City Attorney’s office submitted on July 17th and it is currently #25 on their list.
Then hopefully folks saw the Santa Fe Reporter article came out Bike and Pedestrian Activity school week, pretty good article.
12. NEXT MEETING: November 09 2023
13. ADJOURN
https://santafe.primegov.com/public/portal
