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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes Transportation Advisory Commission - 03/28/2011 RECEIVED Transportation Advisory Committee Meeting Minutes MAY 0 9 2011 • Monday, March 28, 2011 `` 'S OFFICE Call Meeting to Order - Karen Beard called the meeting to order at 2:30 p.m. II. Approval of Minutes - Minutes of February 28, 2011 were approved. III. Presentations and Discussions - a. Monthly Traffic Fatality Report: Monthly Traffic Fatality Report: Sgt. Pena reported thirteen (13) fatalities for the year 2011. He said there have been seven pedestrian fatal accidents this year. b. Monthly Bicycle and Pedestrian Subcommittee Report: This item is combined with item d. c. Police Department Traffic Enforcement Complaints: Capt. Vesely reported no statistical changes in the complaints. The majority of the complaints deal with speeding and usage of cellular phones in school zones. He said there are a few people that are getting militant about the school zones. Mr. Cardenas said there are over 260 school zones in Corpus Christi. Capt. Vesely said they only have 20 traffic officers in the mornings and afternoons; that is when the officers are busier working traffic accidents. He said people are getting frustrated with the lack of school zone enforcement. Carroll High School has one of the largest numbers of complaints but Windsor Park Elementary is getting many complaints now and people are getting very impatient with the traffic enforcement at this location. Capt. Vesely stated he wished they had enough traffic officers to go around where they can be proactive and check out some of the school zones that nobody has complained about but unfortunately, it is not possible. He said on the bright side, there are only two months left of school and then summer begins. This will give us a little bit of a break where we can do some different enforcement during those hours of the day. He stated if the traffic officers are not responding to traffic accidents, every one of them has a school zone they enforce during the morning and probably a different one in the afternoon. Ms. Cudd inquired if there have been many tickets given for using cellular phones in school zones. Capt. Vesely said plenty of tickets are handed out for this. d. Discussion of Previously Approved "Safe Passing" Ordinance to take to City Council with Possible Action Taken: This item is combined with item b. Ms. Beard reported after the "Safe Passing" ordinance was passed by the TAC last month; a couple of discussions came up. The first was when we want this to go to City Council. She said we are at an election time and stated it may be best to do it after the election. Ms. Beard said they did not want it to be an issue that could be shut down either for or against. She said the subcommittee decided they would prefer to wait until after the election. She said the other item discussed was that too many people have looked at this ordinance. In doing so, since their last meeting, a few things were brought to their attention. One being, we were being insensitive or politically incorrect in calling a person a disabled person. She said it is called a person with a disability. Therefore, we needed to change that terminology to be correct. She said the other item was we Page 1 of 5 SCANNE. changed 2 to C to because one talked about drivers and the other one about the vulnerable users. Therefore, instead of being 2 it needed to be C, this did not necessary required committee approval because we were not adding or deleting anything. The last line says "this section does not apply to organized events" was our original language. She said what came up in that discussion was we were following fault to our argument the law was too vague. Who constitutes an organized event. If our committee decided to go for a ride some Saturday afternoon, could we call it an organized event. For this reason, since that could be debated we opted to add in "this section does not apply to city permitted events" so if they have gone to the trouble to get a city permit for this organized event than it does not apply to those. Otherwise, you still followed the laws of the land and do what it is required of you. Therefore, we bring this to you for a modification for your approval with a change and we will take this to City Council late in May. She said as far as the Bicycle and Pedestrian Subcommittee meeting there was not much discussed. Ms. Beard said they looked at Parks and Recreation activities but there are not any hot topics right now. Charlie stated that Parks and Recreation is getting very active with many new designs in their parks. They have a very good committee called the Parks and Recreation Advisory Committee (PRAC). He said they are looking into connectivity of parks through the drainage areas and bike trails and things like that. He said they also discussed the upcoming bike ride. Ms. Beard said this would only be a 15-minute ride and Bay Area Bicycles will be providing the bicycles and helmets. Ms. Beard said the bike ride would take place on Saturday, April 16 at 10:00 a.m. Mr. Cardenas said this is not a meeting; this is just a bike ride. e. Discussion of Directed Patrol Officer (DPO) @ 4600 block of Nicholson St.: Mr. Cardenas said this item was brought up through the City Council. He stated Capt. Vesely and he would give an update to the City Council on what the issues are. Capt. Vesely said that about a week ago, he received a call from Mr. Dickie Hoskins who lives at the 4600 block of Nicholson St. He is directly behind the South Park Nursing Home that is fronted on McArdle Rd. Capt. Vesely said he went to investigate his complaints. Apparently, Mr. Hoskins started at the top with the City Manager then called the Chief of Police and was upset that Capt. Vesely was given him a call about his traffic concern. Capt. Vesely said this takes a form of many other different traffic complaints that he usually gets. He said what he usually does is direct the complaint to the correct officers that can handle the issue. In this case, it was sent to the Charlie District, it would be attention to the Director Patrol Officer (DPO) in this district. Because these officers deal with neighborhood issues that are, causing concerns to the residents, whether it is graffiti, drug dealing at a certain place or partying late at night, or noise ordinance. He said this is police related but works with Neighborhood Services, Animal Control or other city departments that the DPO co-ordinates all this together. Mr. Hoskins complaints essentially are twofold. He is concerned since the big garbage containers are picked up at 4:00 a.m. by the industrial garbage collectors. He said that this starts his day at 4:00 a.m. and he cannot go back to sleep. The other thing he is complaining about is that the 4600 block of Nicholson is being used as the delivery street for the back of the nursing home. There are probably food deliveries, linens and that sort of things. It starts at 4:00 a.m. and continues throughout the morning. He lives in the 4600 block of Nicholson St., which is not equipped to handle those heavy types of Page 2 of 5 vehicles. He and his wife have brand new vehicles and he is concerned about the damage being done to his vehicles as he tries to drive over this rough street. He was so upset that he said he was going to the City Council on Tuesday and probably on Wednesday, he was going to take several months vacation in New Mexico and he expects something done by the time he gets back. Capt. Vesely said he sent out the notification to the right people and made sure that things are moving along. Of course, he went to City Council and I was not here. However, apparently, the interim City Manager was particularly uncomfortable with having to deal with these types of issues and of course, she turns again to the Police Chief who sent it back to me. I called Mr. Hoskins after work, to let him know what we have been doing. I was hoping the DPO would be here to report his findings. Having driven there myself and looking at his complaints, the only thing that has to do with the traffic issue is the roadway and the apparent inability of the roadway to support that type of 18-wheelers or large delivery vehicles. The roadway in front of that entire block is no worse or better than any other similar type of roadway up and down in that neighborhood. Capt. Vesely said some streets around his neighborhood were repaved with new curbs, gutters and sidewalks and maybe this is what he wants for his street. However, I advised him that getting streets redone, particularly to support the weight of big vehicles is not something that the city has the funds to do. This would probably take some type of bond issue to include his street in the next set of street improvements. Capt. Vesely said it seemed that Mr. Hoskins was okay with this explanation because he knows that someone is looking into his concerns. Mr. Cardenas showed and explained a map of the area to the committee members. Ms. Beard inquired if it would be possible to send Sunnybrook Health Care Center an official letter stating there has been a complaint. Ask them to have their delivery people approach on Sunnybrook Rd. and have the deliveries dropped off around 6:00 a.m. Mr. Price suggested it needs to be investigated to make sure what types of, vehicles are driving down this road because this may be true or it may not be true. Mr. Cardenas stated they would continue with this investigation and hopes to resolve the concerns. f. Traffic Signal at Ayers St. and Ocean Dr.: Mr. Cardenas explained a plan sheet of the overlay job that was completed about a year ago. He said this job was done at Ocean Dr. and Ayers St. and the old crossing was by Cole Park. He said the old ramp was not ADA compliant so when they came back to do the overlay they had to come back and do the ramps. He said it was very expensive and each ramp costs about $3,000 and it was about $15,000 for this intersection. The problem was the crossing here was not geometric and the ramp configuration had to be redone with the sidewalk going into Cole Park. This was the issue here and that is why we could not do the crossing at this location. We had to do the crossing on the north side, we rebuilt the ramps and redid the crossing. The problem is the signal pole. There is not a pedestrian countdown head here and the push button was not in this side either. That was not part of this contract, the change order would have been another $10,000, and this is the case in many other intersections. He said about a month ago they received a call concerning this and they are change ordering this in another ADA project. In the other ADA project, there are line items for ped-buttons and ped-heads, so the contractor did bid on this and we were able to supplement the peg-heads here for this intersection. The work should be starting in about four weeks. Mr. Price inquired about the traffic coming out of Cole Park by the Page 3 of 5 concrete barrier. He asked if traffic stops when a pedestrian is in front of them. Mr. Cardenas said yes they do. Mr. Price asked is there something there to stop the traffic. Mr. Cardenas responded that there is nothing there but they,can paint some yield to pedestrian pavement markings on the pavement. g. Possible Installation of Delineators on Everhart Rd. @ Whataburger Way: Ms. Beard reported that she went to this location for about two hours on a Thursday from 4:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. Ms. Beard stated she saw over 18 times vehicles stalled out. She said they were waiting to see who was going to turn left, sitting in the center lane before getting in the left hand turn lane. She said this was backing vehicles up for a long time. Mr. Cardenas said he did not have his drawing for this item. Table item for next month. h. Median Crossover at Leopard St. in front of HEB by Violet Rd.: Mr. Cardenas explained a diagram of this location. He said this is similar to the HEB Plus on Saratoga Blvd. He said the issue was both driveways. Mr. Cardenas said vehicles would cross the median and there have been a high rate of accidents because of vehicles crossing here. They were not fatal accidents but there were too many accidents happening here. Vehicles are crossing two lanes of traffic and then having to use this as a refuge and wait for these vehicles to pass. He said this is a dedicated left turn. Mr. Cardenas said in Traffic Engineering this is called a conflict point and we want to get rid of the conflict points at any intersection. For this reason, we always come up with these median projects. Like the one on Saratoga Blvd. and Staples St. TXDot is working on, much to the dismay of other business owners but those are good things because it eliminates these conflict points. Nevertheless, there is a conflict point here. There were some talks about shutting these driveways down and that was not an option. We certainly can put in a "worm" because it looks like some snake or worm and place those white delineators there. He said this is very simple and cost effectiveand it stops drivers from having to crossover again. He said to turn left you have to turn right and turn around at the signal and go left or westbound. He said the proper signage would be placed there too. He said there is another u-turn further down to turn to your left. He said four conflict points were eliminated by doing this. Mr. Price asked if the delineators were going to be placed on top of a flat raised concrete like the ones on Saratoga Blvd. Mr. Cardenas responded these would be similar to the ones on Everhart Rd., they are attached to a solid rubber base and those are replaceable. Mr. Cardenas stated that if things get better and something more permanent comes in, we could get rid of the delineators. Mr. Cardenas stated this is what he is going to propose for Whataburger Way. i. Discussion of Transportation Advisory Committee Members' Reappointments with Possible Action Taken: Ms. Beard stated Mr. Edd Price, Mr. Curtis Rock and Mr. Anthony Colosi are all up for reappointment. Ms. Beard asked Mr. Price and Mr. Colosi if they would be willing to serve again and both Mr. Price and Mr. Colosi responded yes they would. Ms. Beard asked Mr. Cardenas if he had talked with Mr. Curtis Rock about being reappointed and Mr. Cardenas answered yes Mr. Rock has expressed that he would like to be reappointed. Ms. Cudd motions to recommend the reappointment of the three-committee members. Mr. Soza seconds. Motion passes. Page 4 of 5 • IV. Staff Recommendations requiring Committee Review for Recommendations/ Actions - a. Appointments to the Bicycle and Pedestrian Sub-committee: Ms. Beard recommended Marshall Burns, Light House for the Blind, for the ADA position and Wayne Eden, owner of Fleet Feet, for the pedestrian position. Mr. Price motions to approve. Mr. Soza seconds. Motion passes. b. Motion to Approve "Safe Passing" Ordinance to take to City Council with Possible Action Taken: Motion to approve previously approved "Safe Passing" ordinance with new changes to take to City Council. Ms. Cudd motions to approve. Mr. Soza seconds. Motion passes. c. Motion to Reappoint Mr. Curtis A. Rock as Chairperson to Transportation Advisory Committee with Possible Action Taken: Tabled until next meeting. d. Motion to Reappoint Mr. Edd Price as Committee Member to Transportation Advisory Committee with Possible Action Taken: Ms. Cudd motions to approve the reappointment. Mr. Soza seconds. Motion passes. e. Motion to Reappoint Mr. Anthony Colosi to Transportation Advisory Committee with Possible Action Taken: Ms. Cudd motions to approve the reappointment. Mr. Soza seconds. Motion passes. V. Identify items to be placed on a future agenda - • Update on Construction Projects • State Legislative Update - Freddy Ramirez VI. Public Comment - • Edd Price • Freddy Ramirez VII. Adjournment - Meeting adjourned at 3:30 p.m. Page 5 of 5