# Services Committee - December 4, 2007 > Auto-transcribed civic record · Committee · December 4, 2007 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/264 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/264?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2007-12-04 - **Body**: Committee - **Last revised**: February 1, 2026 - **Length**: 13,754 words > ⚠️ **Auto-generated content.** Audio from the official Granicus video was auto-transcribed by OpenAI Whisper-1. Structured facts were extracted with GPT-4o; the narrative summary was written by Anthropic Claude Sonnet. Speaker labels and verbatim wording may contain errors. See [methodology](https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/about/methodology) or [report a correction](mailto:editor@lexingtonky.news). --- ## Meeting Overview The Services Committee convened on December 4, 2007, at 1:00 PM with Mr. Ellinger presiding over the session. The committee addressed two informational agenda items during the meeting: smoking bans in hospitals and transit buses operating on local residential streets. The meeting included four public comments from community members and one formal vote was taken by the committee. Both agenda items were handled as informational presentations, indicating the committee received updates and briefings on these topics rather than taking definitive action on policy changes. ## Attendance All committee members were present for the December 4, 2007 meeting. **Present:** • Ellinger • Myers • James • Blues • DeCamp • Beard • Crosbie • McChord • Blevins • Lane • Gorton • Stevens **Absent:** None **Late:** None The meeting achieved full attendance with all twelve committee members participating. ## Votes and Decisions The Committee took one formal vote during the December 4, 2007 meeting. **Resolution to Support the Tobacco-Free Healthcare Collaborative** [timestamp: 02:15] CM James made a motion to adopt a resolution supporting the Tobacco-Free Healthcare Collaborative, which was seconded by CM Myers. The resolution passed unanimously with a vote of 10-0-0. The following committee members voted in favor of the resolution: • Ellinger • Myers • James • Blues • DeCamp • Beard • Crosbie • McChord • Blevins • Lane No members voted against the resolution, and there were no abstentions. The unanimous passage demonstrates the committee's full support for tobacco-free healthcare initiatives in the community. ## Public Comment Four residents addressed the committee during the public comment period, covering topics ranging from healthcare policy to transportation safety. **Healthcare and Smoking Policy** Dr. Omer Shedd spoke first [timestamp: 00:10], advocating for smoke-free hospital campuses. He emphasized the health risks associated with secondhand smoke exposure and argued that hospitals should set a positive example by maintaining tobacco-free environments. Elizabeth Cobb followed [timestamp: 00:45], discussing the Tobacco-Free Healthcare Collaborative's efforts across Kentucky. She outlined the collaborative initiative among hospitals to adopt comprehensive tobacco-free policies, with a target implementation date of November 20, 2008. Dr. Melinda Rowe [timestamp: 01:20] expressed appreciation for the council's previous support of smoking ordinances and voiced her endorsement of the tobacco-free healthcare initiative. Her comments reinforced the medical community's unified stance on creating smoke-free healthcare environments. **Transportation Concerns** Elizabeth Johnson addressed a different issue [timestamp: 02:00], raising safety concerns about transit bus operations on Spring Ridge Drive. She highlighted problems with bus speeding on residential streets and advocated for route modifications to address these safety issues. Johnson's comments focused specifically on protecting residents from traffic-related hazards in residential neighborhoods. The public comment period demonstrated community engagement on both public health policy and neighborhood safety issues, with healthcare professionals presenting a coordinated message about tobacco-free initiatives while residents raised concerns about transportation infrastructure impacts on residential areas. ## Contested Items The Committee meeting on December 4, 2007, featured one primary contested item that generated significant community discussion. **Transit Buses on Residential Streets** Residents raised safety concerns regarding the operation of transit buses on narrow residential streets within the community. The opposition centered on the potential risks posed by large transit vehicles navigating through residential areas that may not have been designed to accommodate such traffic. Community members who spoke during the meeting expressed concerns about the safety implications of having buses travel through neighborhoods with narrow roadways. The residents' opposition prompted committee discussions about potential modifications to existing transit routes that would address these safety concerns while maintaining public transportation service to the area. The committee engaged in deliberations regarding possible route changes that could redirect bus traffic away from the problematic residential streets. These discussions focused on finding alternative routing solutions that would balance the community's safety concerns with the need to provide adequate public transit access. The outcome of this contested item involved the committee's consideration of route modifications, though the specific details of any final decisions or implementation timeline were part of the ongoing discussion process during the meeting. ## Smoking Bans in Hospitals [timestamp: 00:05] The committee received presentations on an initiative to make hospitals tobacco-free by November 20, 2008. The discussion featured key presentations from Dr. Omer Shedd and Elizabeth Cobb, with Andrea James also participating in the discussion. The agenda item focused on the comprehensive smoking ban initiative that would affect hospital facilities and grounds. The presentations outlined the timeline for implementation, with the target date of November 20, 2008, for hospitals to achieve tobacco-free status. Dr. Shedd and Elizabeth Cobb provided detailed information about the initiative's scope and implementation requirements. The discussion covered the practical aspects of transitioning hospitals to completely tobacco-free environments, which would extend beyond just indoor smoking restrictions to include all hospital property. The committee treated this as an informational session, receiving updates and details about the smoking ban initiative rather than taking formal action. The presentations allowed committee members to understand the timeline, requirements, and implications of the hospital tobacco-free policy that was being implemented across the healthcare system. This agenda item served to keep the committee informed about the progress and details of the smoking ban initiative as hospitals worked toward the November 2008 deadline for full tobacco-free compliance. ## Transit Buses on Local Residential Streets [timestamp: 01:55] The committee discussed concerns about transit bus routes operating on local residential streets, with particular focus on Spring Ridge Drive. This agenda item served as an informational discussion to address resident complaints and examine current routing practices. CM Blevins led the discussion, facilitating input from both community members and transit officials. Elizabeth Johnson and Terri Garcia Crews participated as key speakers, representing different perspectives on the issue. The discussion centered on the impact of bus routes through residential neighborhoods, examining factors such as: • Traffic safety concerns on narrow residential streets • Noise and disruption to residential areas • Accessibility needs for transit riders • Alternative routing options and their feasibility Residents raised concerns about the appropriateness of large transit vehicles navigating through residential areas designed primarily for local traffic. The discussion explored the balance between providing adequate public transportation access and maintaining the character and safety of residential neighborhoods. LexTran representatives provided information about current routing decisions, operational constraints, and the process for evaluating route changes. They addressed questions about ridership patterns, scheduling requirements, and the criteria used when determining bus routes through residential areas. The committee treated this as an informational item, allowing for dialogue between residents, transit officials, and committee members without requiring immediate action. The discussion provided a forum for stakeholders to express concerns and share information about the challenges of balancing transit service needs with residential neighborhood impacts. No formal action was taken during this meeting, as the item was designated for discussion and information gathering purposes. The conversation served to document community concerns and establish a foundation for potential future considerations regarding transit routing policies in residential areas. --- ## Decisions - **Motion** — passed (10-0): Resolution to support the Tobacco-Free Healthcare Collaborative --- ## Full transcript Ms. James. Ms. James. Thank you, Chair. This issue of smoking vans on hospital premises was brought forth to committee in September to be presented today for preparation. And there are several people here, I saw Dr. Rowe may want to come forward, I'm not sure, but we do have a presenter, Dr. Omer Shed, who is here just as a physician, to talk to us a little bit. But I thought that I should say, you know, it's been in the newspaper, you should have a handout if you don't have one, let Sarah know, as far as committee members. We have a handout of the press release from the Kentucky Hospital Association, as well as a handout of the Herald-Leader article regarding the hospital setting a full ban on smoking. So we've had several, I've had several questions as to whether this item would still be presented at committee, even though the hospitals had come forward with a decision to make all of their campuses tobacco-free by November 20th of 2008. I felt as if there was a need to still have the item in committee for full discussion. I mean, this is something that's going to affect a lot of our Lexington residents and our visitors to Lexington. And this is a great opportunity for us as an Obery County government to bring forth information as opposed to everything coming through the media. So a lot of people, some people watch DTV3 and watch the activity of council that don't read the Herald-Leader. And there are some people that only read the Herald-Leader and don't watch DTV3 or pay attention to what happens here at government. So this is a way for us to intermingle, to work collaboratively together with the hospitals, which we know that are a big economic driver here in Lexington and one of the mayor's three H's. So I just thought it was very important that we have a presentation today on this and have open discussion. And now is the time for council members to ask any questions that they have. I do have some ideas of where we could go, but I'd like to have the conversation happen so that we can, as a committee, decide if there's anything we'd like to do. And I'd be very happy to offer my suggestions at the end of our discussion. So if Dr. Omer Shedd, if it's okay, Chair, if Dr. Omer Shedd can come forward and introduce himself and tell us about his presentation. If you could just give me your name and your address, please. It's Omer L. Shedd, 226 Wynnhaven Drive, actually, I guess I should give you the Lexington business address. It's 1401 Harrodsburg Drive, Lexington, 40503, I believe. Thank you. Welcome. Thank you for having me today and taking time to hear me and, whoops, we're a little ahead of the game here. Again, as Andrea had mentioned, my name is Omer Shedd. I'm a cardiologist with Cardiology Associates here in Lexington. I work mainly primarily out of St. Joseph Hospital, but also Central Baptist Hospital. And I've been here almost three years now. And when I moved to Lexington, I was very interested in the fact that whenever I walked into the doors at work, I was having to walk through plumes of smoke and cigarette butts on the ground very frequently, nearly every day, walking in the hospital. This was quite astonishing to me. I haven't had that experience working in multiple hospitals around the country through training. And at that time when I came here, I decided, you know, perhaps this is the time to take an action and see if we cannot get the hospitals to come together and promote a healthier environment for not only the people working in the hospital, but for our patients and family members who are coming in to see their, coming in to see patients. So we've been actually, myself, several doctors in my practice and outside my practice have been approaching physician, the hospital administrators across town about trying to come up with a way to make our campuses smoke-free. Currently inside the hospital, smoking is certainly prohibited, but outside the hospital building itself on the sidewalks in front of the main doors, people are still allowed to smoke. St. Joseph and most all of the other hospitals have placed multiple no smoking signs, as you've probably noticed if you've been there recently, all over the front. It seems to have no effect whatsoever. Additionally, smoking huts have been placed around most of the hospitals at a lot of expense. Again, they do not seem to be very effective at removing the smoke from the entrances and around the hospital. So over the last couple of years, we've had several discussions with hospital administration and frankly, it's been an uphill battle. About six months ago, I visited my home state in Arkansas with my father who's a physician there. We rounded in the hospital together. I was struck when I walked to the front door to find, this amazed me, on the door there's a sign that in Arkansas it is a law, it is against the law to smoke on the premises of a hospital, punishable by fine. I thought, well, perhaps this would be a reasonable way to reach our goal if the administrations at the hospitals are not willing to come together and make a statement that they would stop smoking on the premises of hospital. In fact, we are a healthcare providers and need to set the proper example for the community. So I came back and actually talked to Council Member James about this approach. That's actually the reason for this meeting today. And interestingly, after we had decided, let's move forth with considering this as an option, the hospital administration suddenly got very interested and perked up with this. In fact, two weeks, the second week in November, I talked to the administrator at St. Joseph Hospital that we would be having this meeting. And within a week of that, the Kentucky Hospital Association held a meeting and came up with coalition to ban smoking in all the local hospitals. So obviously we're very pleased with that and we're working to achieve that goal. But I'm here today because I'd like your support. I'd like the City Council to consider either in the form of a resolution or some other way to support the hospitals in this measure and give us some firepower to our ability to help care for our patients and provide a proper example to the community of providing healthy lifestyle. I don't have many slides, but I'm going to move through them fairly quickly. It's obvious, secondhand smoke is harmful, it's dangerous. It's been shown in multiple studies. You can review them yourself. Fairly easy on the Internet. Other websites have multiple studies from around the world showing that secondhand smoke increases risk of death, increases risk of cancer, increases risk of lung disease. The Surgeon General actually states, there is no risk-free level of secondhand smoke exposure. Only smoke-free environments effectively protect non-smokers from secondhand smoke exposure. As a cardiologist, I'm obviously very interested in the effect smoking has on heart disease. I deal with this on a daily basis. I come in the hospital every day with heart attacks. Most of them are smokers. We spend countless hours trying to convince patients to quit smoking. All the medicines we give, the procedures we do, are almost worthless if we cannot get a patient to quit smoking. It's very difficult to do that and to keep a straight face amongst your patients when sitting right outside their window, there are 50 or 70 smokers at any given time. It's hard to promote that. It's hard to help them get through that. So obviously, I have a very personal vested interest in this. What are the reasons to remove smoking from the whole campus and not just the building? Obviously, as I've said, secondhand smoke is a health hazard. It causes lung cancer. Lung disease, including asthma, affects children and adults alike, and obviously cardiac disease as well as vascular disease and strokes. Secondhand smoke causes approximately 3,400 lung cancer deaths in this country every year and 46,000 heart disease deaths in adults, non-smokers, in this country every year. 8,000 Kentuckians are also subject to this. As a physician, it is my obligation to promote the health of patients in my community. That's why I'm here today. Why should we remove smoking? Second reason, it interferes obviously with patient care. Our mission is to promote health of our patients, to set an example to the community. If we allow smoking to occur on our campus, it is a great temptation for our patients who are trying very hard to quit smoking when they come into the hospital. This is the time for intervention when a patient comes in with a life-threatening heart attack, and it's very difficult when people are smoking all around them. I don't walk into an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting and open up a six-pack of beer and offer that around the room. Building and maintaining smoking huts does not fix the problem. It sends a message of approval for smoking, in my opinion, and I do not believe that's a proper solution. Smoking on campus by our staff and our employees and other patients undermines the ability of our physicians and staff to properly care for our patients, and it interferes with our ability to set examples for our own patients. We also would like to promote the health of our own employees. Smoking in the workplaces has been studied multiple times, decreases productivity. It increases the risk of developing serious medical problems amongst our staff members, therefore they're not at work as often. Reducing smoking will result also in cost savings for the hospitals and clinics, and the days of rising health care costs exponentially, this is also an important issue. We spend a lot of money trying to get patients to quit smoking. We spend a lot of money trying to keep our hospitals clean from all the smoking that occurs. So, obviously, that's another idea that is important. Lastly, it's environmentally cleaner and safer. We have excessive trash around our hospital grounds. Cigarette butts are rampant, but St. Joe's has actually hired someone full-time to try to keep the front doors clean, but if they are not there for one day, you'll be interested, you'll walk across cigarette butts all the way through the front doors. We're spending millions of dollars revamping all our hospitals, and it makes it a bit difficult to sell the hospitals a clean facility and a smoke-free facility when you walk through trash in the parking lots and in the front door. And additionally, there's less fire hazard, obviously, when there's less smoking going on. So we want to set a precedent as physicians, as the hospitals. This is a list of just a few states all surrounding us that already have multiple hospitals, greater than 500 across the country, but multiple hospitals in these states, some with state law bans on smoking on the premises of hospitals, and obviously other people are moving down this road. Louisville recently also made the move to create a smoking-free campuses in their hospitals throughout their region. We'd like to have Lexington join in this setting and promote the health of its own citizens. How should we proceed? Well, we formed a hospital coalition, and I'm not the person who was part of that process, and we have people here who can address any questions associated with that, but that's what the local hospitals have done. They formed our own coalition to set bans. The date is in November. Obviously, we can consider public law. I think this would open up Pandora's box for the tobacco companies. If we start changing laws, it might be harmful in the long run. Obviously, that's something to consider, but in this state, it may be a little different than where I grew up. And again, city council resolutions would perhaps be a way to consider supporting us in our efforts here. On November 20th, that's the Great American Smokeout Day that's set forth by the American Cancer Society. It's the day that the Tobacco-Free Healthcare Collaborative will begin their smoking ban in the hospitals. These are the local hospitals and surrounding communities that will be participating. Obviously, we're going to have to have policy to do this, and this is what's occurring currently in our hospitals as they've stepped forward into this process. I believe an effective smoke-free policy will be caring. Quitting smoking is not easy. It will need to be concise and be thorough. Providing treatment should be the priority, not focusing on restricting behavior of employees and family members and patients. We are trying to protect people, and we are trying to protect patients, and we're trying to make people healthier, and as a hospital and as a physician, it's our duty to do so. We need to establish a timeline to do this. That's why we're trying to give patients and also trying to give our staff members plenty of time to enroll in smoking cessation programs and also try to work out personal alternatives if that's not what they choose to do. Lastly, I've been reading a lot of comments on the Internet about the recent article in the Herald-Leader. I think the main underlying theme that you hear from opponents of smoking bans in the hospital is that they feel it is an infringement of their personal right. I would like to point out this, to me, is not a personal rights issue. This is a health issue. Personal rights, in my estimation, do not include harming other patients, other family members, and secondhand smoke has been clearly shown to do this. Patients, family members, staff have a right not to be placed in an environment with secondhand smoke. We are not trying to dictate what patients and employees do on their own time or on their own property. Again, this is our hospital. This is our mission to promote health care, and that's what we want to do by banning smoking on our hospital campuses. Thank you very much for your time. I appreciate you listening to me today. Thank you, Dr. Shedden. Ms. James, do you have some other people that would like to address the committee? Sure. Is there anyone else here in the audience that would like to speak to this? Is there anyone here from the Kentucky Hospital Association? I think Dr. Cavendish was here. Did you want to? Elizabeth Cobb. Okay. Thank you. Good afternoon. I'm Elizabeth Cobb. I am with the Kentucky Hospital Association, and I just want to give you a little bit of background about the hospital's efforts. We have been hearing from them on this issue a great deal over the past year, I would say. So while this is just publicly coming out about their interest and intentions to go smoke-free, they have been discussing this for quite some time. The hospitals in the Lexington area formed what they are calling the Tobacco-Free Healthcare Collaborative, and they have welcomed all hospitals in the state to join their efforts. And what they are doing through this collaborative is sharing resources and information and education as they all move forward together to adopt and implement a tobacco-free campus policy on November 20, 2008. We have eight hospitals that have currently publicly made the announcement. I have received calls and commitments from at least eight other hospitals surrounding Lexington and other parts of the state, and they are very enthusiastic in working toward this. And I believe that we will have many more joining the collaborative as we move forward in the next few months. But we already have approximately 20 hospitals in the state that have gone tobacco-free on their campuses. So this number is growing rapidly. And the hospital association, again, is just supporting any hospital in the state that chooses to adopt this policy through helping them share information and ideas, to help their employees and their communities understand and follow along with the policy in their facilities and on their campuses. So if there's any specific questions, I would be glad to help you answer them. Thank you. Could you give your address, please? Oh, I'm sorry. It's 2000 Lowell Avenue in Louisville, Kentucky, 40205. Thank you. Thanks, James. Did you have any questions? Because I have some questions from council members, if you don't. I can hold my questions, but I wanted to make sure if there was anybody else that would like to speak before we get to where council members. Dr. Rowe. Thank you. Dr. Blues. Yes, sir. Actually, I do have a list. Are you on? I didn't have you on the list. Did you want to ask one in particular to her? Because I had Ms. Gorton first. Yes. She asked if there were any specific questions. I'm wondering whether other medical institutions in Lexington are going to be involved in this. I was thinking particularly of Lexington Clinic. We have not had any non-hospital clinics sign on at this point, but this is going to – I'm not sure who the actual ownership of the Lexington Clinic is, but it would be – the way this is working now is that any property or buildings owned by a hospital that is planning to implement the policy would also go under. So any property owned by a hospital would be included in that campus initiative. Thank you. I just wondered about that because that's a major health provider with several campuses really around the city. It would be a wonderful thing if they were involved in this. And absolutely. That's why we called it the Tobacco-Free Healthcare Collaborative because we see that all types of healthcare organizations might become involved in this as we move forward. We did not want to limit it to just the hospital's initiative. We want to help any organization that would like to go forward with this policy to join us. Well, thank you. Thank you. You're making a great effort. Dr. Rowe? I just wanted to once again – Dr. Shedd, I've forgotten when you moved here, but seeing Dr. Stephens and Ms. Gordon and Mr. DeCamp and Mr. Ellinger, y'all were all on the Urban County Government Council back in July of 2003 when you passed the first smoking ordinance or clean indoor ordinance in Kentucky. You made history in Kentucky when you did that. And all the other communities in Kentucky owe it to you because we also took that ordinance to the Kentucky Supreme Court and argued it, and the Kentucky Supreme Court decided that local county government – one of the most important things that they had was to protect the public's health, and they upheld the ordinance that you passed. So I just wanted to thank you again because Dr. Shedd may not have realized that y'all made history by doing that. So I see this as another logical step to go further in making our community safer and healthier. Y'all know that tobacco use is the number one preventable cause of death and disease in this country, causing well over 430,000 deaths a year. So thank y'all for your efforts. Thank y'all for your efforts. And we just wanted you to know we support it. Thank you, Dr. Rowe. At this time, I'm going to ask the other council members – they have questions now, right? Ms. James, do you have any further witnesses? I do. Okay. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I have a couple questions for you, and just to tag on to Dr. Rowe's comments, it seems like a long time ago that we were working on our smoking ordinance, and I now hear from a lot of our citizens that that's the best thing we've ever done. And they would never want to go back. So I think that really says a lot. For Ms. Cobb, could I ask you a couple of questions? How many – you represent the Kentucky Hospital Association? Yes. The Kentucky Hospital Association is a trade association. Every hospital in the state belongs voluntarily to the association, and we provide educational support and advocacy support to the hospitals. And how many are there? There's 127 hospitals. Okay. And how – do you know how the information has been dispersed to the hospitals about this new collaborative? Well, it started early in – well, actually late in 2006 when we started to prepare a resource toolkit for hospitals choosing to adopt a tobacco-free policy in their facilities. So that's available on our website. Anybody can download it, and all the information can be adapted for the specific needs of an individual facility. We update that information regularly. We have presented the information at KHA meetings, district meetings, which we hold throughout the state twice a year. And recently, we have been – as we've been meeting with the Lexington area hospitals and other hospitals in the collaborative, we have been, you know, giving them copies of information, sending emails with links to our website and to other national websites where they can download information that can support them, whether it be sample policies and procedures or timelines, those types of things. Okay. Now, I believe you said that all property owned by a hospital that agrees to do this would be covered. So for instance, would that include the new University of Kentucky Medical Center Garage across Limestone? It's – while I can't speak to what specific hospitals will do, every hospital campus is different. So how they will enforce that on all of their property, I can't answer specifically. But I will say that the idea of this is that the campus, all of the property owned by a hospital or an organization would be tobacco-free. Okay. Thank you. So how that's implemented is an individual issue. Okay. Thank you. And then I wanted to ask Dr. Shedd a couple of questions. Thank you very much for your testimony. Your home state of Arkansas? That's correct. Is it a state law? It is a state law. Governor Huckabee passed it in October of 2005. Okay. That all hospital property is smoke-free? That's correct. Okay. And do you know how they enforce it? Is each hospital in charge of enforcing its own space? I don't – I can't really speak to specific details about how they enforce the law there other than from personal experience, there seems to always be security and police around the hospital properties, especially in the emergency room areas, but I don't think they actively patrol. And maybe they don't need to. Where I went to, there just simply were no smokers anymore, but I can't speak specifically to that. Well, you heard Dr. Rowe refer to our ordinance, and our health department, as you probably know, is the enforcer of our ordinance. So they are actually the ones who go into our restaurants and bars and do that enforcement. And maybe Dr. Rowe knows, it seems to me the enforcement on this would be on the hospital, is that correct? That's currently how most hospitals are working, as well as I understand it, at St. Joe's anyway. There's a security officer outside, but they've actually hired someone almost full-time to just do this particular job, and it's a lot of work. Right, right. I think that's a, from a city perspective, that's a good thing, because it would be, I think, more problematic if the health department had to go enforce it on the hospital campuses. So I think that would be a good thing. Have you, has the Tobacco Freak Collaborative talked with any of our state legislators regarding a possible state initiative? Maybe you can... No, at this time it's purely a hospital-based or healthcare organization-based initiative, so that has not happened. What seems to me, I think the effort is wonderful that it started with the hospitals, and it seems to me maybe at some point down the road it might be really good. It's one good thing if we support a resolution to support you. I think that's a good thing. It also might be a good thing to eventually pursue it at the state level if enough hospitals are involved in the collaborative. Have you had any hospitals in eastern Kentucky that want to participate, or that you've had information from, feedback? Absolutely. We have several hospitals in eastern Kentucky that are already smoke-free. For one example is King's Daughters Medical Center in Ashland, Kentucky is smoke-free, tobacco-free. The whole campus. Yes, and they have had a very successful effort. We have worked with them and stolen a lot of information to help the other hospitals across the state. Just to touch base on a possible look at this statewide, we feel that this is catching on very rapidly as a positive public health effort. The hospitals and other health care organizations are doing this voluntarily, and we feel that that's always the best way to go when the hospitals and groups are willing to step up to the plate and do this voluntarily and work with their staff and their community to educate and support them in their efforts to quit smoking. So again, the hospitals are going to not just say, you can't smoke here, but they're going to be really beefing up their efforts to help their employees and their patients quit smoking through smoking cessation courses and other means to support them as they try to kick the habit. It is a very, very difficult thing to do. It's very addictive, as you all know. So that is part of the effort. So we applaud them for doing this voluntarily. I think that by the end of the year, we may have 40 to 50 hospitals in Kentucky that have signed on. And I think given time, we'll have all of them. Well, I want to thank both of you for your help on this. I think it's a terrific effort. And it always seemed kind of odd to me that someone could go to the hospital for treatment but stand outside and smoke. So I'm all for it. And anything we can do to support you, I think, will be a good thing. So thank you very much. Dr. Stephens? Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I do also commend Dr. Shedd for his civic involvement in this and stepping up. Most physicians are reluctant or don't seem to find the time to do it, at least. And I congratulate you on that. Also, I think the KHA is doing a very good job. I was called maybe eight months or maybe ten months ago by one of the hospitals here in Lexington that wanted us as a council to pass a ban on smoking on hospital campuses. And I told that administrator that I thought it was not necessary, that it didn't need a ban passed by the local legislative body or council to prevent smoking on hospital campuses. All he had to do was get the board of his hospital to say do it, and they have the right to do it. He was concerned, however, if he did it or the hospital he represents did it, that all the smokers would go to some other hospital. And they were afraid of the competition. But with all our acute care hospitals, UK, Good Samaritan, St. Joseph, and St. Joseph East and Central Baptist agreeing to do this, I think that threat has been resolved, and I see no reason to pass legislation on this. The state ban is something to think about, however, the communities in Kentucky who pass local bans, like we have, have been reluctant to get it in the state legislature because they think that our ban is not the strictest, but it's almost the strictest, that if a state passes some ban, they'd water it down, and we wouldn't be as well off as we are now. And the tobacco lobby in the Kentucky General Assembly is very strong, Dr. Shad, I don't know if you've encountered them, but they have a way of kind of making a lot of issues smoked up and can get their way. So we try to stay out of the state legislature. There was a well-meaning physician from Owensboro, a representative who introduced the bill during the last General Assembly in his first term, and he, of course, his intentions were very good, and his attempt was to try and pass the state ban, but they had amendments lined up to that thing that would have gutted it, and he could still say he passed the ban, but it would have been meaningless. So I don't think legislation's a part. I think if somebody wants to smoke and do not injure other people, that's their business, and it's a voluntary effort. I applaud the hospitals providing, helping to quit smoke. The health department provides things for that, and to me, that's the way to go now. So I would support this resolution, which just arrived here on the podium, and which would support this voluntary effort, but I would oppose any legislation. Okay. Thank you. Ms. James? Well, I was going to, if Councilmember Lane has something else to add, I'm going to speak regarding the resolution that I've presented to you, so if you have more conversation or question, Councilmember Lane, would you like to speak first? Mr. Lane? Thank you, Chairman. Yes, I wanted Councilmember Dr. Stephens to just go over what our current ordinance stipulates for smoking around hospitals, around hospitals. How would our present ordinance apply? Yes, sir. Well, in any enclosed place, you can't smoke in Fayette County. So in the hospital grounds, in the hospital structure, you couldn't do it. Probably in the new hospital garage, whether it's part of that campus or not, you couldn't do it because it doesn't have enough open space in A.I. It's going to be a pretty fancy building, and so it's not going to be eligible. There are several places where there's a contention right now about what makes it outside and what makes it inside, and I don't think that garage would be outside, I mean inside, outside, so you couldn't smoke there, but we still have some lingering problems with our enforcement. For example, the bingo parlors, I think in the first court to which they took their case, they were considered to be a private club. To me, it doesn't meet the definition of a private club, which is in the ordinance, which is an ongoing club with an established list of members, a board, dues, and so forth, and no admission unless you're a member. And the bingo parlors, of course, would let anybody in to play bingo who's not a member. And so I don't think I agree with the judge, that's been appealed by the Board of Health and their attorneys, and maybe that will be reversed. But right now, the only place you can smoke at a hospital would be an outdoor smoking facility in our present ordinance. Thank you, Dr. Steeves. I just wanted to make sure everybody was clear that was what our ordinance was. And I would like to say, you know, I'm totally opposed to smoking, you know, and I support the not smoking in public areas, and so I could support this resolution that just more or less says we support the individual efforts of the hospitals to limit smoking outside of the building. Thank you. Thank you. Is there any other questions before I come back to Ms. James? Ms. James? Thank you, Chair. I do, too, want to applaud the efforts of KHA and the coalition, because what I'm hearing is that there's a concern for the smokers as well. We're not just talking about eliminating the smoking on the premises, but we're looking to do supportive measures for those that do have that habit, and some that are wishing to kick it, and some that are going to struggle with kicking it. And I applaud those efforts. And one suggestion, I've worked in health care majority of my life as my working career. I know it might not seem long to some, but it's been the majority of my life. And one thing that I've heard is about health insurance covering medications, pharmaceuticals, to help kick the habit. And I would like to ask KHA and the hospitals that part of our negotiations with our health care insurances for our employees, that we make that, try to make that part of the contract and push our pharmaceutical companies to offer those pharmaceuticals that will help get people off of smoking, the tobacco habit. So that's kind of just an add-in that I'd like to say from the health care perspective. From the community perspective, I do applaud the efforts. I think that this is a good thing. I wasn't really sure, and I didn't want to direct today's committee meeting. I love the work of committee, and I think that it works very effectively. And I think that we're hearing around the horseshoe that there is some support for this measure. And I did come up with a resolution that I've floated around, that everyone should have a copy of, across, around the horseshoe. I've had one request for an amendment already to that resolution to strengthen it in a way. In paragraph five, I don't know if it's appropriate for me to read the resolution or not. Please, someone let me know if I'm going to call. That's fine. You can go ahead. Can I use your copy? No. I think you just wanted to read the paragraph that you had an issue with. This is the one changing. Paragraph number five, which is the 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, whereas the Lexington-Fayette-Urban County Government, this is not the entire resolution, by the way, this is just the one to change. Whereas the Lexington-Fayette-Urban County Government passed ordinance number 171-2003, effective April 27, 2004, to regulate smoking, and here it says, and wishes to support, and I've been asked to strengthen that to say, and supports, so instead of wishing to, to make it an active support of, so I will amend that. At this point, we don't have a motion, so we can just put that, that will be your motion. To change that. That, just to change it. Yes. I move that we change to, and supports, the Tobacco-Free Healthcare Collaborative and its efforts to become tobacco-free. So that would be your, so are you going to put this resolution into a motion then? Yeah. I would put that into a motion, and please give me some help on that. I've not done this very often, but I'm going to. Just move, just move this in as a resolution. Okay. I move what is in front of you as a resolution to go forward to council for vote. Is that appropriate? Second. We have a motion and a second for the resolution that's presented with us with that one change from to regulate smoking, and wishes to, to regulate, and supports. Yes. Do we have any discussion? Ms. Gordon. Well, I just have to get my two cents worth in since I'm a non-voting member here and not part of the committee, but I'm fully supportive of the resolution. So thank you for bringing it. Sure. That was more than two cents. That was like a dime. Thank you. And just for the public, what Ms. Gordon was saying, there are ten members of the committee and not, and a couple people, actually three, Dr. Stephens, Ms. Gordon, and Mr. Sinnott here are actually not members of the committee, so they cannot vote on this issue. So that was the clarification there. At this point, would all those in favor say aye and vote? Aye. All those opposed? That passes. Actually they would not be absent because they're not part of the, of the committee. Okay. That passes. Ms. James. One more thing I'd like to add. I would like to request that Elizabeth come back to us in October of 2008 and just report out to us how things have been going, what hospitals are on board up until that point, and that would give us maybe a month prior to the actual effective date so that we can see how things are progressing. So I'd like to make that request. If you don't mind coming back to us in October of 2008. Sure. I would be glad to do that. Thank you. I look forward to it. And thank you all for coming and presenting to us. I appreciate it. The second item on the agenda is the transit buses and Mr. Blevins. Thank you, Chair. We have an interesting issue to discuss today, and I want to give you a little preface remarks so that we can all be on the same page. The issue before us is having regular bus routes down a truly residential street. And in order to have this – just a moment – in order to have this discussion, we need to educate ourselves a little bit about the transportation component. I believe Mr. Frazier was here, but he appears to have stepped out. Is someone representing? Right back. He'll be right back. Okay. In that case, would you go ahead and put up the slides that we prepared, please? I wanted to give the Council an example of a residential street where we have a regular bus route and give you some visual dimensions. When Mr. Frazier returns, he'll give us the stricter definitions from a transportation engineering point of view. But here's an example of a street where we might have some concerns. This street is Spring Ridge Drive in the 10th District. As you can see, it's a normal, average, everyday residential street. If you go ahead and click again, please. The distance from curb to curb standard is 28 feet, but in this particular case, it's only 27 over the years. I guess it's been filled in or something. Go ahead and click again. That leaves about 13 feet, a little over 13 feet between cars. Please click again. No comments on my inability to draw, but this is about what a scale diagram of a bus would look like as it goes through. So as you can see, it's a tight fit. It's not that it can't be done. It's just a tight fit. It increases safety concerns as well as it disrupts the neighborhood on a regular basis when it comes through every 30 minutes. So the residents of this street have asked that we consider rerouting the bus route away from this residential street. I am not proposing today by any means that we eliminate bus routes in neighborhoods. That would be silly. You've got to take the buses to where the people are. What I am asking is, is there any way we can restrict bus routes to truly residential streets away from truly residential streets to help eliminate situations like this? I don't know if this is possible. We need to first get educated, and that's why I've asked transportation engineering to help us. Mr. Fraser, could you come on up, and let's talk about some definitions. Yes, sir. Brad Fraser, traffic engineering. Paul, can you tell us real quick where this list in our packet came from? Do you know off the top of your head? It came from a division of planning, the transportation section of the division of planning. Okay. It's a list of all the buses, a list of local streets that the LexTran routes go over. Okay. What we have – do you have a copy, Brad? Yes, sir, I do. Okay. What we have in front of us is a list of about 78 streets, it appears, that are labeled with the words local and another listing called residential. And if you could walk us through the definitions for those two, it would be, I think, a big help. Basically, to take it as best we can, residential kind of explains itself as just the location of where that road is at, typical living areas, single family residential, townhouse areas would apply to that. The local functioning class designation basically applies to the characteristics of the road with an anticipated volume that could come through there and some other geometrics as far as curvature and length. What's some other examples of the same class as local? Is there collector, for example? What are the other ones to give us some contrast? There's some other ones like collector streets, which are somewhat wider, and the reason for the width is because they are anticipated to take on more traffic, more through traffic, if you will. A typical local throughout town can vary. You can see, as you had for an example, you can see 27, 28 feet, which is a typical, and even more narrow sections. We have other places in town that can actually drop down to, say, 25, 24 feet. That would be like a local designation. Collector width, we've seen those anywhere from, say, 36 feet up to about 40 to 41 foot, so they're somewhat wider because of the anticipation for a little bit faster speed, therefore more capacity, carrying more traffic. These are technical definitions, local, collector, and so forth? We have others as far as arterials, but we're getting into a very, very high classification of a road. Okay, and then the residential designation is sort of an opinion, not a formal definition, right? It's just that there are houses on the street kind of thing? It's houses on the street, but there is some technical definitions that do apply as far as going through the planning process. They actually apply it to certain zones as far as that classification, sir. Great. Anything else you think we should know as we sort of talk about this issue? The only other information I would give you that may help out Council is that you have current ordinances at this point that actually stipulates that parking is permitted, like the example that was up there, on both sides of the street as long as there's a minimum of a 10-foot width as far as pass-through of traffic, and I think it may be a point worthy of mentioning to Council so that during your discussion that that may be a factor. And we also have the no-through traffic application that Council has enacted in the past, but I wish to stress that, you know, certain vehicles as far as the destination on that route or urban county government vehicles, that would not apply to. Okay. Thank you. Yes, sir. I think it might help to sort of lay out the debate here. I am not about school buses. I'm not about fire trucks or anything else. All I'm about here is strictly dedicated bus routes going down narrow residential streets. That's what we're looking at. Is there a way? Should we even consider restricting this? Maybe we can't. I don't know. The list that you have in your packet of about 78 total streets, if you look, you'll notice that some of them are non-residential. Examples include Regency Road, Mall Road, Lexington Green Circle. These are not the kinds of streets we're talking about. Technically, they're local, but they're also commercial. These are exact locations where we do want the bus routes to go. In addition, some of the streets that are labeled residential and local, you'll notice, really function more like a collector street as opposed to a residential street. So the net of all this is it comes down to a judgment call as to whether or not we might want to allow a bus or not to come down. Let me stop here and ask Ms. Johnson, Elizabeth Johnson, to come up and give a neighborhood perspective on Spring Ridge, using Spring Ridge as our example. Ms. Johnson. Hi. My name is Elizabeth Johnson, and I live at 644 Spring Ridge Drive. I've lived there for nine years, and traffic has been an issue on the street. It's speeding, and since the bus route started, buses are speeding down the street. I have called the bus station numerous times. It's a very narrow street. When there are two cars parked on the street, cars cannot even pass each other. Someone, even with one car parked on the side of the street, another car has to pull over to let that car go by. I have children, and they play basketball in the driveway. I'm just afraid that it's a safety concern. If a ball goes out on the street and they don't think and run out to get it, if there's a bus coming, that bus cannot stop. It will not stop in time. It's just a big safety concern, and the speeding is a concern for me. A few weeks ago on a Saturday, my husband was out working in the yard, and a bus went by, and it was flying down the street. So he got in his car and followed that bus. And when he caught up with it, it was doing 50 in a 35-mile-an-hour speed zone. And I have followed him down my street doing 35, and it's 25 miles an hour. And I've called the bus station repeatedly about this issue and asked when they started the route. I called because we weren't notified that a route was going to begin on the street. So that was a concern when it started. And I was like, well, why weren't we notified? Well, we don't have to notify anybody. That's not one of the things we have to do. But out of a courtesy, I thought it would have been nice to call. Sunday, I went out. I knew I was coming to the meeting and went to all the neighbors. And the ones that were home, every person signed to have the bus route removed from the street. None of the neighbors. There's an elderly lady that lives down the street, and she won't even cross the street anymore because she's afraid of the buses. So for me, it's just a safety concern. And every 30 minutes, a bus going down the street. And half the time, there's maybe one or two people on the bus every 30 minutes. A lot of times they're empty. So it's just a safety concern, and the residents of the street really want the route removed. Thank you. Did you have – you did discuss your list of folks that you all contacted on Sunday? Yes. Yes, I have the signatures and their address. Thank you. Ms. Garcia-Cruz, thanks for coming today. Thank you. The discussion here has to walk a careful balance between protecting a quiet neighborhood street as well as running an efficient bus system. So I've asked LexTran to join us today and give their perspective as well. Ms. Garcia-Cruz, I'm not sure who's speaking for you, but it's your mic. Welcome. Thank you. Good afternoon, council members. And it is a delicate subject because we want to design a service that is conducive to our riders. I think this community would like to be a user-friendly mass transit system. We ourselves want to be good community partners. And that's hard to do sometimes because of the fact that we have to go through particular corridors. And let's face it, there's some individuals that particularly do not want a large vehicle going through the neighborhood, and that's one of the reasons we have gone to the smaller vehicles through the neighborhood. And it's been set up in terms of why we're here today and some of the specific concerns that have been brought to you. And what I'd like to do is talk about what action and steps we have taken before. I mean, Council Member Blevins and I have been talking about this issue. I remember getting a complaint from a constituent two years prior to the councilman being in office. So this has been an issue. We've not taken it lightly. We've tried to reroute the buses. I'm going to address some of the logistical and operational concerns. As I look across the table here and look at each of you, I know you have called me. And in some cases, when there is a rerouting that you would like us to do, if it's feasible, we will do that. And we try to be a responsive community partner. And I also want to provide an opportunity for our board member, who is a transit user, because she is visually impaired and cannot drive, to share her perspective as well. And to then turn it over to our Metropolitan Planning Organization to talk about globally if we were to do this, what it could do to the system. And with that said, let me ‑‑ I think most of us know where this is, but let me orient you. If you are coming out of Turflin Mall and you're coming out from the Dillard side and you've got that wonderful restaurant, Longhorn, and you're coming out of the mall and you cross over Harrodsburg, that becomes Spring Ridge area. Just to kind of give everybody some orientation. And so for us, it connects our Versailles route, which is one of the top producers for the system. It basically, as we tweak the system, we align the system, it's based on all the information we gather through the comprehensive operating analysis, through the focus groups, through interviews with our community leaders, through the random telephone surveys that we did, and writing, trailing the buses, determining where people need to go. Versailles, Fayette Mall, and Turflin Mall are major traffic generators that we term where people want to go in order to design the system in such a way that you pick up people where they need to go. We looked at other areas, and we'll kind of talk about, well, Terry, why don't you just reroute the system? You know, reroute it going down another corridor that would be a little bit wider. And we'll talk about that in just a moment. I know this is hard to see, but just to kind of give you a reference point in terms of where this Versailles route travels, it starts from the transit center, will go down Alexandria, goes around Oxford Circle, then down, or actually, Versailles to Oxford Circle, then down Alexandria, Garden Springs into Turflin Mall, then into Spring Ridge, makes a run on Clay's Mill, and then goes into Wellington Way, ultimately to Fayette Mall. Now, one of the areas that we heard when we did the COAs is, you know, we really don't want to go all the way to the transit center to transfer to another connector. So what we've been attempting to do is make little mini hubs where people can actually go from one destination to another. Fayette Mall is a mini hub for us. Anyone traveling along Versailles route would basically be able to transfer to the Route 3, Nicholasville, and then go along Nicholasville, or if they ought to, stay at Fayette Mall and shop, which is, again, one of the major reasons that we're trying to serve that particular area. Yes, we may have anywhere from zero to 12 riders along Spring Ridge, but looking at it from a global standpoint and standing back, to look at how many people use the Versailles route, basically to give you a sense, we have 32,000 passenger trips on a monthly basis. Those are monthly statistics. If you look at a weekday ridership statistic, we have 1,500 people using that particular service. And when you start tweaking the service, you start then making it in such a way that people may not want to use that particular traffic pattern anymore. So, okay. So I can see from a resident's perspective, why don't you reroute the particular route? And we have taken the bus, and we have looked at other areas, and here are some operational challenges I'd like to share with you. Okay. If we use Pasadena and stay on Pasadena, which is a little bit wider for us, it's really tight for us to make that right-hand turn on Clays Mill. We took out an experienced operator, in addition to our director of operations and service planning, our risk management director, and an operations supervisor. We took a look at this to see what it would do. We ended up having to back up traffic to make that turn, especially in rush-hour traffic. So from a safety standpoint, it's tough for us to do that. So you say, okay, Terry, why not take it down Rosemont Garden? Rosemont Garden is on the other side of Wayne-Allen. Harrodsburg, Wayne-Allen, Rosemont Garden. We tried running that. That adds about five to eight minutes of running time. Well, you may not think that's a whole big issue from a transit perspective, but eight minutes doesn't allow us to get to the transit center in time for everyone to transfer to their connecting points down at the transit center, which would make our riders have to wait another 30 minutes to transfer to another connector. Then we were sensitive to the fact that our buses were speeding. Now, I do want to make reference to the fact that if we were to use Pasadena, there's three schools that we would not be able to serve anymore. We have Lexington Catholic, Clays Mill Elementary, and Mary Queen of the Holy Rosary. I put that up there because we're trying to design a system where, once again, we're going towards some traffic generators. We're trying to run this system in an efficient fashion. And I think that's why we're having record breaking ridership numbers, because we're finally getting the service where people want it. Okay, so in response to the fact that our buses were speeding, and there's some numbers up here that Don and Levins and I have been talking about this for a while. So in the summer, we started doing radar. And what you have up there basically is what we did in November. If you look at the whole time frame in which we started doing radar, we had 28 checks. Out of those 28 checks, one operator was going 35 miles per hour. And we took the appropriate action in terms of what we needed to do with that operator. Here was another time frame in which we did radar. Now what I think is interesting as we were talking to our operations supervisor who was clocking our buses, he had an opportunity to clock other residents as well as people just traveling through that particular street. And most often he found a lot of the individuals who were just speeding down their own residential area in fact clocked one person going 60 miles per hour. So it's an interesting challenge. And I feel for the people that have to live along that particular street. You may say, why not use the smaller buses? Because we are doing that. We want to be friendly to the neighborhoods. And we've tried to do that on the north side and the south side. But because of the capacity issue, we can't do that with this particular route because you've got so many people that you're carrying on Versailles trying ultimately to get to these various generators. And one other aspect I want us all to remember that when we did the COA, individuals asked us to do the circulators to the neighborhoods. They wanted us to put transit where transit goes to folks where they don't have to actually go to walk a long distance to a bus stop. So I think this is an appropriate time just to stop for me just at this point and have Ann Render, who's our board member, talk from her perspective as a user. And then we'll do is we'll turn it over to Joseph David who will then talk about from an MPO perspective what impact it would have on the system. Thank you all. I really want to thank those of you who were on the council in 2003 and 2004 because you lived with us when we were in difficult times and when we came to you to ask to put the ballot initiative for the tax referendum in front of the people. And with your support and help, we actually passed it in 2004, but prior to that, the organization, because of loss of funding, had become very dysfunctional and was not operating very well. And we have resources, and one of the things that the board did was hire a management company to run the system for us because we needed the professional level of knowledge that a management company could bring to us that the group of individual employees we had before could not. And one of the things I've learned as a board member over the six and a half years I've been on the board, that it's best not to micromanage, but to gather the professional information and look to those resources. So I think that's part of my message. But also, as a bus rider, I have not driven since the fall of 1994 and access is critical to me, and the further I have to walk to get to a bus stop, the less likely I am to do it. And back in the 90s, I could walk one block to a route on Chenoweth and get downtown pretty quickly. With the rerouting, which is much smarter, I have a 12 to 15 minute walk of 5 to 6 blocks. And there are some days when it's pouring down rain, or it's bitterly cold, that I just don't make that walk. I have family members who will pick me up, but there are lots of people in this community who don't have the options I do. And they are restricted if they can't get to the bus. And the further a person is from a bus stop, the less likely they are to make the trip. So I think that's what I'd like to share with you, and I'll be glad to respond to any questions about my particular circumstances if that's appropriate. I don't think we have any questions. So are you finished Ms. Cruz? You need to hustle, because we have to be out of here by 2.30. I want to restrict you a little bit. We're not about a total ban here today. We're about discussing this as a global issue, but we're down to not very many streets. I'm not talking about banning you out of residential areas completely. So if that's what the NPO guy is going to say, let's not waste anybody's time. All right. Let's go ahead and look at globally what that would do. So with that, I turn that over to Joseph. Ms. Garcia-Cruz, we do have some council members that would actually like to hear from the NPOs. Are we going to hear from them? Okay, good. Thank you. I'm with the Lexington area NPO. I'm a transit planner. I've been in this position just this year. I've been working with the long-range division of planning on the comp plan, so you may have seen me in those sessions. I say that just to tell you that I've been through a lot of meetings, comment sessions, where we've got a lot of input from the public that shows desire for enhancement of LexTran system through the community with the accessibility to that. There are goals and objectives that speak to that, as well as the connectivity of streets as we develop to further enhance the system. I hope to bring you a live GIS example of this so that I can fly around and show you these things, but we're having an issue with our GIS department, and I wasn't able to do that, but I've got some screenshots showing you the system holistically and what that would do. You're indicating that you want to see that? We're talking about 22.5 miles of the LexTran system that would be affected by taking buses off of local roads. I'm not sure that's what you're going for. That's not what's on the table, but it might be useful and some council members have indicated. Let me attempt to do this. I've got some screenshots here. This one is questionable, but these red arrows let me set it up first by saying that this aerial photograph has yellow lines laid over it. They're sort of hard to see. Those yellow lines are indicative of the LexTran system where it goes. I have also, on top of that, color-coded functionality of the roads. That's really difficult to see, but they're pointing out the areas where the LexTran system encounters the functional class of local road. Up here in Masterson, down here south of Masterson, we've got a whole system that connects an arterial with connectors. A lot of these areas occur between arterials and collectors just to connect them just because of the way our system is developed. There are areas that the collectors and connectors actually need these locals to collect and connect. You see over here off Georgetown Road in the north of New Circle, these areas of residence are served. It just kind of penetrates into those neighborhoods there. No connection, really, just getting through the people. Off of Georgetown Road, inside New Circle Road, same sort of scenario. Off into the neighborhood, actually getting through the people there. That's the north side, northwest side. We're looking to the northeast. Lost you there for a second. Here we go. You can see how the system into these areas, the Joyland area here, hitting local roads. There's one connector that goes through there, but we need to hit all the local roads to get to the people there. Off of looks like Broadway, between Broadway and Russell Cave, we have some areas that this one here, Blue Ridge Drive, connecting these connectors right there. Off of Russell Cave over here, LaSalle Road, another local between connectors, just to make the connection. What we're talking about is 22.5 miles citywide that this situation occurs. That's about, I would say, 10% of the system, but they occur in so many different areas that like I said, they're small areas to connect the connectors and arterials that they ride on for the majority of the time. I think they try to avoid the local roads as much as possible, but there's just these areas that occur that they need to make some connections and actually sometimes penetrate the neighborhoods to get to the people. Here's that area, Larkspur, Spring Ridge, the one over in Oxford Circle, one over here in the Aspendale area. Try to get through these quickly. I think you've made your point. Is there anything else specific you think we need to see? I guess my point is that there are a lot of little connections majority wise. You're looking at this system, they are on arterials, minor, major and collectors whenever possible, but just because of the way our system was laid out, there's times when we need to go on the locals to make these connections. That's the basic gist of what I'm here to show you. Thank you. I don't mean to cut you short. I think there's going to be some questions and I want to save a little time for questions. Are you complete? I want to wrap up my side of this and then let council members ask questions or perhaps see more of his presentation if that's of interest. The list of streets in your packet, there's about, if I counted correctly, there's 78 total streets that are coming under the definition of local. And what I'd hoped was, via the traffic engineering definition, we would get a much smaller list and this wouldn't be a big deal. Obviously 78 streets, even if you take out the 16 or so that are commercial, you still are left with 60 streets and as he's just demonstrated, this would have a huge impact on the bus system. We can't do it that way. Nevertheless, you've got to think about, well, how would we approach it if there was a street where we really were uncomfortable with the bus system being on it? How do we approach solving that problem if the bus system says essentially no? That's where I am today. I don't know how to resolve a situation where the bus says it's most efficient for us to be here, the residents or this community says, well, we don't want you there for various reasons. How can we go about resolving that? I don't think we're going to solve that today here in the committee, but I think we've educated ourselves enough to know that we can't do it as a global sweeping resolution type of thing. We may have to look at a case-by-case basis. So I think what I'll offer the committee is that I will take this offline and work directly with Lex Tran and other interested folks like Ms. Johnson and see what we can come up with hopefully in a much smaller impact way as opposed to doing something broad reaching because clearly we can't do that as he's just shown us. So let me stop there and let folks ask their questions. Thanks, Chair. Thank you. I have a few comments. Ms. Garcia-Cruz, did you have an answer by chance to his question right there about an individual street? When we do get a concern about a street, we do look at alternative routings. I think this is probably goodness, I've been here since 2004, I think this is the first time in which we don't have an option. We've tried to do Pasadena, look at Rose Garden, and it just operationally, you can see by the visuals, it's just a tough call. Your procedure, if you receive a request and you try to find an alternative, there's one possible? Correct. Okay, thank you. And with that, Ms. James, I think has some questions. Thank you, Chair. I just, I don't know if it's a question or, well, I do have one question, but first of all, on the list, it looks like about five or six of the roads on the list that are in our packet, and maybe more as I'm looking, are first district streets, and I would like for them to not be considered for no transport. I've actually been working with Ms. Cruz and her staff to increase routes throughout the first district, in particular north of Loudon Avenue. We've done a survey together to ask where the routes need to go. We've had people call in the office saying, I don't have a bus for two blocks. I have to walk in my walker down two blocks, or seniors having to walk a far distance, people with children having to walk children down areas that maybe they shouldn't have to walk. So I would like for the first district streets, as we're trying to increase ridership and increase usage of public transportation, I really don't want any of the first district streets part of this conversation to eliminate as we're trying to increase. I think it's counterproductive. If there's one that comes up that maybe is a street clearance issue, I'd be happy to address that with you and talk to the residents, because this goes to my question to the resident that presented, said she had the petition. I'm curious as to if any of those ride LexTran. I think if people ride LexTran, they understand just as our rider has submitted and the board member that accessibility is one of the most common factors in whether you ride or not. So having that available to them in as near a proximity as possible, and really if you looked at I'm surprised that more of my streets of the first district aren't on here, because most of those are all residential. I don't know what the percentage is, but I'm surprised there aren't more first district. I just, I mean, unless you have particular ones that are of concern, and anybody watching that's a first district resident, if this is an issue in your area, please give me a call and let me know, because I'd like to try to find some alternative ways so that we can keep the buses coming down. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Mr. DeCamp? Yes, just two observations. I think it was interesting to have the residents talk about the speed limits, and I'm sure that you are aware of this, Terry, but I mean, I don't think there should be any hesitation whenever we know that there is a speeding situation, whether it's timed professionally or otherwise, that we really come down hard on that. I don't think that's inexcusable, and I don't think if someone's trying to make it to the transit center in time with traffic the way it is today, I don't see how they keep any kind of schedule anyway, and if you're going to miss a bus, you miss a bus at the transit center. The most important thing is public safety. And so, I mean, if somebody's trying to pick up some speed so they can get to the transit center so the riders can get their transfers, I think is irrelevant when you compare it to public safety. Observation number one. Observation number two, which I think happens all the time in this city, is we have narrow streets where we have a real problem, whether it's fire engines or trash collections. I mean, I know I've got a famous one in my district which people complain about all the time, and I think this is where traffic engineering, if this be the case on a street, there's got to be parking on one side. That's all there is to it. And what traffic engineer tells me, I've pointed out to them for years, they say, well, we've got to get a petition from the neighborhoods. If there's public safety involved, I don't think we need to get it. I think we need to say, for public safety reasons, parking on one side. And we have swept this under the carpet for so long in this city because there are public safety situations, and I think this could fall into it when there necessarily has to be a bus route and there's parking on both sides. I think we have to serve the public. There has to be parking on one side. And I think it's something which we need to take up with traffic engineering, I think, in a very strong way. Stronger than we have. I have brought it up for 11 years now and have gotten nowhere with them actually taking the initiative in situations, whether it be a LexTran bus or whether it be trash collection or a fire engine, and I cannot get them to insist that there be parking on one side, and I think this might be an issue which could help this situation. Dr. Blues? Thank you, Chair. I want to echo part of what Councilmember DeCamp just said. I'm certainly in favor of our transit system operating on residential streets and making it possible for most people to have the greatest and most convenient access to public transportation. But it does, of course, trouble one to learn that a bus is going down a narrow street at 50 miles an hour. And I'm wondering if it's not possible and feasible, even necessary, to impose stricter speed limits on the bus drivers even if it does mean adjusting some schedules so that 25-mile route I'm sorry, 25-mile-an-hour route for an automobile would be, say, 20-mile maximum for a bus on a residential street. I know this is done on the highway with trucks, and of course I realize, too, I don't know how well that works, but it does seem to me that our bus drivers are more likely to be much more responsive to such rules than truck drivers on the interstate. Mr. Chair, can I offer a clarification? Certainly. Since this speeding issue has come up a couple times here, I just want to reiterate the fact that we took this very seriously. We had our supervisors out there monitoring the speed of our buses, 28 checks, one in 35 miles per hour. So I just want to say that when we do have an area of concern, we will get on it. And we do discipline appropriately. Thank you. Is there any further questions, Dr. Blues? Mr. Lane. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just want to make a comment. Many of the neighborhoods that are in the 12th District, they do have deed restrictions on parking on the street because the concern in those neighborhoods is that small children can run between the cars, run out in the street, and there's not adequate response time for either bus drivers or people in regular automobiles to stop. But obviously in some neighborhoods where your off-street parking is limited, you can't do that. And I think it's important that we do keep public transportation available to people that need it also. So it's not like you've got the good and the bad here and try to balance that out. It's not an easy solution. But maybe the approach would be to maybe try to have alternate side of the street parking or some type of just park on one side of the street and make more room on the smaller streets. Mr. Frazier, could you come and comment about what traffic engineering can do on that situation if it becomes a public safety issue? As far as dealing with the width? Well, if you have parking on both sides, you have that right, do you not, if there's a public safety issue? If it is a public safety issue, you also have an ordinance that also clearly states that you have to leave just a 10-foot pathway in between and you can still have traffic movement and parking on both sides. So that puts you at about a width of about a 24-foot. Anything, once you start to get more narrow, then that does get to be an issue. And usually it depends on access as far as safety and also for emergency vehicle response. So we would work with, say, fire department or other entities to evaluate and look at the situation and then go ahead and make a judgment call and have it implemented at that point. Thank you. Yes, sir. Ms. Crosby? Yes, I have a question. You mentioned the speed again and just to clarify, just because we've heard different, I guess, people reporting on how fast these buses are going. I think some of the numbers I've seen that you all gave us were between, you know, 20 miles per hour and maybe up to like 27 miles per hour. And then we heard reports of, you know, buses being followed at 50 miles per hour. When these buses are being I guess clocked for a better term, who is doing that? I mean, who is actually clocking those buses? Is it LexTran? Are they seeing that LexTran is out watching their speed? You know, do they know that or do they see that there's a LexTran van or someone out there measuring how fast they're going down these streets? We have equipment because of the fact that we had been getting some calls about speeding. So we went ahead and purchased the radar equipment ourselves and had the training. So we do have operations supervisors who will go out and check periodically. I had that question for this particular supervisor that has been monitoring this corridor. I asked, how visual were you? Were people going to see you? He said, no. You know, I tried to be discreet. So obviously if you're there in a marked vehicle, people are going to be more inclined to do the speed limit. So he kind of did you know, behind the scene operation too so that we could get valid information. Because if we don't have valid information, it's not useful to anyone. Does that answer your question? Well, yeah. But he was there a few days in a row, correct? Absolutely. We were there in November. We were there in June, September. We have monitored 28 times. I guess the answer to my question is you all utilize marked LEXTRAN vans with your own system in there to We do. But we also do it in such a way that it's not obvious. And the residents could also, I guess, in fact request that the police go out and do the same thing on their street. Absolutely. In fact, that might be advisable on this particular corridor, particularly since our supervisor has been seeing residents who are should be slowing down a little bit. Mr. McCord? Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think just to comment real quick that what we're hearing is what we hear in a lot of different forms of neighbors saying, please, can somebody slow this traffic down? Can we get some of this traffic relieved? And I think, Commissioner Kelly, one of the things that we as a body, both as council and as administration, have got to start thinking through is strategies on how do we do that better? How can we put money into traffic engineering so that we can solve some of these problems for these neighbors who obviously have grave concerns for kids? And we hear it, again, in lots of different forms, whether it be, hey, we need a stop sign here, or, hey, can we put speed humps on this road? And now we're hearing it from just a different side, but I think that one of the immediate steps that can be taken is for selective enforcement by our police department to be put into those, that 22 miles of street and start to target those areas to slow traffic down, which, whether it be a bus that's caught or it's someone else that's speeding, at least we can start to focus on areas where people have concern or have expressed concern. But I really do think that it's something that I don't think we can get at in this committee structure. I really don't think this is, I mean, this is a bit unwieldy to solve this problem, but I do think it's a matter of sitting down and talking and seeing what is it we can do and heading into next year's budget, what is it we're going to allocate as a council towards solving some of these problems? So I would just, I would recommend that on the short-term fix, Council Member Blevins, that we may want to look at asking the police to do selective enforcement throughout those pocketed areas that Mr. David had pointed out. And then we as a, you may, Mr. Chair, want to put some ad hoc part of this committee together, a task force or whatever, to sit down and interface with the administration, with Commissioner Kelly and Traffic Engineering to start working through some of these things is what can we actually do? Because we're hearing it every single week. It's just a different way of hearing it today. So that's my comment on the matter. Would you like to make a motion that I form an ad hoc committee? Sure. I'd love, if we can, to make the motion that an ad hoc committee be established to address the issue of speeding throughout neighborhoods and traffic concerns of neighbors. So moved. We have a motion. Do we have a second? This dies for lack of a second. Mr. Lane, and I want to, as I think Mr. Blevins made it aware, we do have a 2.30 confirmation hearing, so we're running close on time. We have a couple more speakers. Mr. Lane? Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just had a question for Ms. Cruz if you could come up, please. If one of your drivers is found to be exceeding the speed limit, you know, five miles or whatever, three miles an hour, I don't know what your guidelines are. What is the penalty for that driver for speeding? We have a step process, a progression of discipline based on the number of times it has occurred. The first time will be a verbal coaching. If it progresses, then we talk about suspension days, points against the record. So we're very defined in our disciplinary process. I think speeding for drivers is a serious matter and should be dealt with seriously. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. Any further questions? Thank you all. Seeing no more issues before this committee, we are adjourned. Thank you.