Music Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. is our January 14th committee summary, and this is a summary that we actually moved to council earlier so that steps on the design excellence update could be taken. So these have already been approved by the council, but I think it's proper to ask if there are any additions or corrections to these that have been submitted. And if there are none, ask for a motion to approve. Move approval. By the vice mayor. And a second by? Second by council member Beard. All those in favor? Opposed, like sign. Thank you. By way of the part of our agenda that is rhythmic updates, one of the ones that we had not had in the longest amount of time was the downtown two-way traffic study. So I requested an update on it. It appears in the packet beginning on page three. It's a very interesting report. And who is going to make the presentation? Tom, welcome back. Nice to see you, sir. Thank you for putting this together for us and to be here to present on it. I ask for you to step through it and then we'll see what questions that brings and look forward to being constructive. Thank you, Mr. Farmer and members of the committee. Appreciate you having me back. Thank you. My name is Tom Creasy with Stantec. I'm the project manager for the downtown Lexington traffic movement and revitalization study. And you are probably wondering what's been going on with it since I was here last. And that's my reason for being here is to bring everybody up to speed on what's been happening since last April when I last talked to you and where we are and when probably of most interest to everyone, when we will get to the finish line on it. If you'll recall, we took the downtown area and we broke it up into three smaller areas. It made a lot of sense to focus specifically on these three different areas one at a time because each of them had characteristics and issues that were unique to those areas. So we had the north, the north area, the core area, and the south area. And then last summer, we finished our, we completed the analysis of the core area, which primarily looked at the remaining portions of 3rd and 4th Street that remained as one way, plus North Limestone and North Upper. That means everything beyond Main Street, Short Street, West and East 2nd Street. And as you know, 2nd Street is really two separate streets, or it's discontinuous there. And so those were the streets, and our evaluations not only involved the typical traffic parameters or criteria that we're used to dealing with and discussing, but also other criteria like safety, metrics, and impacts on other modes of transportation, buses, bikes, pedestrians, and also stakeholder input. it. We had a public meeting on this last June, and just briefly, again, to summarize those conclusions, from an operational perspective, anyway, traffic operations, North Limestone, North Upper, Short Street, and West 2nd Street, hypothetically, we could see the conversion happening without any significant area-wide traffic operational impacts. It doesn't mean that there weren't impacts, but nothing significant on the whole downtown area as far as those impacts. There were some areas of concern that we identified that had special needs with respect to traffic circulation. To of note, they're around the Opera House with all the events between the Opera House and the Children's Museum in the Children's Theater would require some very significant detailed study. A lot of that we did already, but it would need completion of that to identify specific traffic circulation plans to make sure that we didn't create any problems if that were converted to two-way. Also on North Limestone in the area of the schools between 2nd and 4th Street, particularly Sayre School and Lexington Traditional Magnet School. And we identified those. We also identified some potential impacts on how that conversion might affect routing of Lex Tran buses, school bus operations, fire truck operations, particularly fire trucks, the large trucks, ladder trucks making turns at tight corners and identifying that there may be some mitigation efforts to work through. Also on Short Street, that area around Cheapside with loading zones, there's particular times of day that can be problematic. I will say that as an outcome of identifying that issue that there's already been a working group that's been formed to study that issue in terms of, say, establishing designated loading and unloading areas along Short Street to concentrate those in one area. So we're already at work on that. And then we also identified some of the potential benefits that could go along with the conversion of the north area streets, like some traffic calming, actually. I know that speed, particularly on North Limestone around the schools, is a real issue. Detour opportunities, if, you know, because of the one-way street pattern now, if you have an incident and having to detour traffic, it can be a problem. Ease of navigation has obviously improved also. particularly for those out of town because they don't have the confusion of the one-way streets and finding their way around. None of this is new information here. We produced those findings, put it on the website, and I had a public meeting on that last summer. That's just touching base on that briefly on what we concluded. We've been working on the south area, a similar type of analysis there involving south limestone, south upper, Maxwell and High Street. We've done a lot of traffic analysis work. We still have some work left to do, particularly involving safety and the other modes of transportation, stakeholder input. What we have found, though, on the south area analysis, that would hypothetically be if south limestone and south upper were two-way, and also if Maxwell and high streets were two-way. So we did an analysis under this scenario. And one of the things I want to point out is that in order to make that work operationally, that Y there at South Limestone and South Upper would have to be changed so that Upper Street would intersect Limestone at a T intersection there, what's inside that orange circle. and also just to the south of there where scott street intersects ultimately with the last piece of the newtown pike extension also known as the scott street connector the plan for that is to come in along the existing scott street alignment that would introduce another traffic signal there because that would have more more traffic turning movements so that was built into our traffic assumptions as well. Preliminary conclusions for that, as you would expect, if Maxwell and High Street and South Lyme and South Upper were converted to two-way, you would expect travel times to be a little higher, speeds would be a little slower, delays would be higher, there would be more stops. One of the things that we can only approximate right now because it really happens beyond the boundary of our traffic simulation model area is if Lyman upper were converted to two-way, we could expect some pretty significant backups along South Limestone, especially in the morning. And it's as you would expect. You're narrowing down the number of through lanes as you're approaching downtown. I can estimate that we could expect that back to Virginia Avenue. beyond that our models don't extend that far so it's difficult to quantify still a preliminary finding we have some additional work to do on it a couple other things to mention there would be the possibility if some of those South area streets converted to two-way that some on-street parking would be lost particularly at intersections where we had to have a short center left turn lane to accommodate left turn movements. If you had on street parking in that vicinity, probably that on street parking would have to be eliminated. So we would have the room for that center left turn lane. Also the possibility of eliminating some of the bike lanes. I know that we have a bike lane on on South Limestone there and also Maxwell Street. So under a two way scenario, we wouldn't know that until it got into further into more of a preliminary design, but there would be the possibility of of losing that in order to accommodate one way or two way traffic flow for the south area. There's still some other unknowns that remain. A lot of that because we just don't know yet, particularly UK's master planning efforts and what we've had conversations with them, but that's obviously not finalized. So some of those would be unknown even beyond the decision making point. What remains for the south area, we need to finalize the analysis that we're doing, followed by a couple of meetings, a meeting with the policy advisory group of the Irvin County Council to give them some of the detailed numbers and the final results from that, and also a meeting with the area stakeholders, including the University of Kentucky, businesses along there, some residents. You know, that south area makes up a lot of people. So having a stakeholder meeting similar to what we did for the north area. And then finally, the core area analysis. We're also in the middle of that right now. We actually, and when I say the core area, we're really talking about Main Street and Vine Street. Key objectives for the core area, and some of these are competing, if you will, preserving mobility. that ability to move people and goods, accommodating all modes of transportation and not just traffic, preserving on-street parking where we have it. We know that that's important. We've heard that from the beginning of this study even before that. Improving safety, not just for automobiles but for pedestrians and cyclists as well, and providing access to businesses, to property. As I said, those are all key objectives, and some of those are in competition with one another in certain parts of the downtown. We've done a lot of work in the core area already. We have evaluated several different options or alternatives and combinations of some for how you would convert main and bind to two-way. There have been two that have kind of made the final cut through these series of iterations. And I'm going to just briefly talk about each one of these. We've called them Alternative 1 and Alternative 3. one we can consider that as a complete street type of alternative you'll see this is a schematic of it this is looking up main street it's a conceptual rendering so this center point would be just to the right of this photograph there's this is that upper street looking back upstream on main street as you can see under this option there's a through lane in each direction there's a center left turn lane. The bike lane that's there now is preserved as would be the on-street parking. We tested this concept early and one of the things that we identified was that the traffic impacts were significant. We would have something similar on Vine Street, so both Main and Vine would look somewhat similar to this. And this is conceptual. There's no plan to it. This is not a design drawing it's just a rendering to illustrate the concept of this alternative one but as you would expect and it's because when you consider the total number of lanes that move through traffic on main and vine Street under this concept you you reduce that from six to four because currently we have at least three lanes in each direction on main and three on vine under this concept with main and vine collectively you only have four in one direction four in the other and the remaining two become center-left turn lane so as you would expect during peak hours anyway the traffic impacts are significant in terms of backups delays those those metrics that that we can identify with when we're driving to work in the morning or coming home in the afternoon the other option which we call alternative three moves traffic better in terms of those same metrics we call it the optimized traffic network it consists of two lanes in each direction at most intersections there's no left turn lane in fact at most of those intersections where there's not a left turn lane there's also left turns are prohibited during peak hours so we kind of offset the benefit of the improved wayfinding if you can't make the left turns during rush hour there are a couple locations where because the demand to turn left is so great you have to have a left turn lane and that's what we're seeing here which is Main Street at upper in doing so we don't currently have the curb width for four lanes and a center left turn lane so it means getting into the parking and possibly even the right-of-way a little bit which may include some of the streetscaping but this this concept does not have the same negative impact in terms of delay stops you know those low travel speeds the backups that we would see with all one and so we would all as I said before we run we would most likely lose those other amenities that particularly on Main Street like bike lane and on-street parking. So it's a trade-off. And again, a lot of these objectives are in competition with one another, and a lot just depends on what do we want it to be. So we are in a process. This is really the framework, then, for how we want to compare the options that seem to be worth the final comparison for this core area. Leave it as it is, or this alternative one, which is the complete street alternative, and has a lot of benefits to it, but the downside to it is during the peak hours when the congestion is the worst and the overall downtown impacts are the most significant. And then the alt three, which some may consider to be kind of a compromise between as is and alternative one. So that's our framework for comparison. That comparison, ultimately, when we present it to this group, to stakeholders, to the policy advisory group, they will be in simple metrics that will allow people to relate to those. The average trip under each of these scenarios may take one minute or two minute or five or whatever for as it is today versus Alt-1 versus Alt-3. How much extra time does that average trip make that is delayed under each of those scenarios? Those types of metrics that we can visualize and relate to, both as decision makers and also as travelers. And then not just the impacts on the automobiles, but again on pedestrians and bicyclists and on people that ride buses. And ultimately then provide this information as input for the decision makers. As far as remaining activities on this, the only thing that we really need left to do on the north area is for those streets that could be converted to two-way. We did conclude for the north area that it didn't make a whole lot of sense to think about converting East 2nd Street to two-way. It's a one-way street, particularly when you get to the very east end between, say, Ray Street and Midland Avenue. It's very narrow has on-street parking and in fact some of those residents there's that's the only parking is on street So it just doesn't make a lot of sense. It's a low volume section or roadway There is some interest on those businesses particularly between say race and limestone or elm tree and limestone Have expressed an interest in possible two-way But when you look at the the utility of the whole piece of East 2nd from lime all the way over to midland It didn't seem a whole lot of sense to pursue that further, at least from the scientific point of view. That would be the information that would be provided. Everything else, you know, if you were going to phase this, then that prioritization is, well, what would make sense to do first? So that's the remaining work left to do on the north area. The south area, again, we need to finalize the analysis. We've done the biggest chunk of it. we have a little bit left to do and then have the stakeholder meeting for the south area stakeholders the core area we need to finalize that as well and then again go through the same public process with stakeholder meeting or meetings again and then go back to our study policy advisory group public meetings that would be needed for this probably a combined public meeting for the south area and the core area. An important thing is to point out this coordination between the urban county government and the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet. Aside from the streets that make up the north area, everything else, at least part of these streets, if not all of them, that currently are one way, those streets are on the state highway system. I mean, the state has the ownership and responsibility for that street, or at least a part of it that is a state or U.S. highway so the the transportation cabinet obviously is a partner in this whole process ultimately the decisions that are made then we we will develop a recommended mobility plan around that that addresses all modes a plan for how you move forward so that's that's the status of where we are the timeframe complete this South area analysis by the end of February the core area analysis We hope to complete that in March. We've had to go back and revisit something in our contract, which is really just a procedural thing. But the plan is to complete that by the end of March and then in the spring get into the meetings with policy advisory group, stakeholders in public, and hopefully be able to complete this and have this mobility plan this summer. So with that, I'll be happy to entertain any questions that you might have. That was a great catch up. Thank you for spending the time on that, reviewing what you had told us before, showing us what you've been working on and kind of giving us a little script for what's going forward. That has initiated a couple of questions here, which I anticipated and look forward for you to fielding. First up is Council Member Lawless. Thank you very much. A small portion of the north area and I think probably all the core and south area are in the third district. And I'm on the policy committee, although there haven't been very many meetings. One thing, and I'd like to add that some of the most dangerous intersections in our community fall in these areas. And when you think about it taking five or even 10 minutes longer to get from one end of Maine to the other, you're not talking about much in the go to L.A. So on the south, where you're looking at High and Maxwell, I've been working for, I don't know, two and a half, three years with a variety of city and state employees, neighborhoods, et cetera. on the Woodland Triangle where Maxwell High intersect with Kentucky Avenue. And it was put off for, it was supposed to start this past summer when school, but then they were putting in the utilities, and so the money should still be there. And it doesn't look like this drawing represents that intersection as it is. And it's an extremely, extremely dangerous intersection where Kentucky intersects. And so two weighing high and Maxwell, I would ask you to please consider that and that intersection and how that would impact that area. Maxwell is, let's see, I get my directions mixed up real easily. Maxwell is very narrow in that section, and there's already problems with Maxwell Elementary and Woodland Park. It's a very high pedestrian area. Parking is at a premium. So I'm real concerned and especially real concerned if it's going to mess with the thousands of hours dedicated to redoing that intersection at the corner of Woodland and, I mean, Maxwell High and Kentucky. So if you could get that information to me as soon as possible, I'd really appreciate it. Well, I'm not sure what information you're requesting. We're not doing any design drawings. We do have the information that was provided to us about its channelization of that intersection. We have that in our analysis. But another thing that we have in our simulation model is assumed a traffic signal at that Y. Because if you're going to make both of those streets two-way, you have to have something there to control traffic, which means introducing additional, it slows everybody down, but introducing delay and stops at that location. Like I say, state and local streets and roads, parks, engineering, stakeholder input, a lot has gone into doing that safely. And there are wrecks there all the time. So I'm very concerned about that. and what the benefit would be to making those two-way. I think it's safe to presume that for those to be two-way, you have to terminate that junction there with a traffic light, which will introduce— Well, I'm asking you—we know that. And I'm asking you, I don't know if you have that design, but I'll get it to you if— We have the design drawings for that intersection. that the improvement that is supposed to be constructed, I guess, as soon as it warms up enough, we have that information that was provided to us by Kevin Wente. Okay, thank you very much. Thank you, ma'am. Next we have Vice Mayor Gordon. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Creasy, thank you very much for the update. So based on your presentation, is June when we can expect the full report? It depends on what decisions are made. And this study will not be making the decisions. It will be providing information to the decision makers about is it worth pursuing which streets to be converted to two-way. And, you know, it's and that's a decision to be made jointly by the Urban County Government and the Transportation Cabinet. So a lot depends on what decisions are made. And then we will be developing a mobility plan based on that. Okay, so technically the full report will be what is decided along the way. So inquiring minds would like to know what is alternative two. What was that? I can't remember what. We had alternatives one through four or five. Okay. I can't remember. They were combinations. I can provide the information to you. I was just curious. This has been a very detailed, extremely detailed and drawn-out process, and because it's such an important thing, I just want to make that point that we've had to step very carefully through this, and it's taken a lot longer than any of us has wanted it to take, but it's a critically important decision, so I think it's justified. All right. On page 10, you talked about South Upper at South Lime. And I would like to ask whether that area would be suitable for a traffic circle. I know there are pedestrian concerns with traffic circles, but cities all over the world use traffic circles very successfully. And Lexington seems to shy away from them other than one that I know of and a second one going in. We can certainly simulate that in our model around about because we have traffic simulation models. And we did that another part of downtown. We did a simulation of Main and Vine on the east end. instead of a signal there as a roundabout. So it's something that can be analyzed, but especially because of the high volume of pedestrian activity there, I would say that at face value, that combined with high traffic volumes, it probably doesn't make a lot of sense because you would have to have two, if not three circulating lanes. Okay, that gives me my answer. And that, I don't think that would be the best location for it. Okay, that's what I was looking for. Although I will say, you know, in Rome, they have traffic circles with like 10 lanes. I don't think we want that here. It's probably a little bit much for us here. But I'm always curious that we go first. It seems that many times we go first just to a signal to stop people. And so I appreciate your reasons for not looking at a traffic circle there. Who else besides Councilmember Lawless serves on this policy advisory group? Councilmember Kay, Councilmember Ford. Okay. Did I miss anybody? And are there others in the government, or can you send us a list? Yeah, we can. Scott Shapiro is the project manager, and we can get that to you. I would appreciate that very much. I noticed on page, I believe, 11, the south area analysis conclusions. higher travel times, lower travel speeds, higher delay, more stops, lost bike lanes. I just wanted to make one statement in that this particular council has done a lot over the years to add bike lanes and see that we had parking where it needed to be. And in several places in your analysis, I noticed that bike lanes would be removed and parking would be removed. And for me personally, that's a great concern because our community has already said we want to be a bike community. So I hope when this all continues to move forward, we will not be losing the things that we value that we've said we want. And I understand that. Yes. The qualifying controlling parameter is that we only have so much space between the curb lines. I understand. And it's how do you want to use that space. And you can do this or do that. Right. And those involve choices. And with each of those, there are advantages and disadvantages. I do understand that. And I appreciate your presentation. Thank you. Thank you very much, Vice Mayor. And last up, at least in the sign-up right now, is Council Member Beard. Thank you, Chair. Of course, just quite recently, like in the last few days, we have gotten a peek at what Rupp Arena and the Hilton and the Hyatt and all of that. It's been said that we're going to have to have at least three parking structures, probably four. And in all probability, depending upon how we handle the ins and outs of those, it's going to be a mess when there is a big event. There's a mess right now when there's a big event, and we can't move traffic as it is. And if we were to make it one lane, for instance, it would be not sustainable. in any event we should wait and see about the construction actually of the transit center and all of that down there because there's going to be equipment and trucks and all of that probably parked on high street and Main Street. And we just don't know what the timing on all this is going to be, but it's going to be a three-year deal at least. I started working downtown in 1956. We had two lanes. And Everybody moaned and groaned that it was, we would be much better going back to that because it would create more shopping and things of that sort. One lane and two lane issue doesn't have a thing to do with downtown changing its whole nature. it's Turflin Mall Fayette Mall Hamburg all that is why a whole bunch of people never come downtown and that's with the situation as it is there's another problem on the on Main Street primarily and that is that there will be six choke points that are not at a stop light right now. American Founders Bank, Government Center Garage, the County Clerk Police Garage that just was refurbished, the Library Garage, the Fifth Third Garage, and the Hilton Garage. And as people come to work, coming from, I guess, southeast, they're going to have to cross traffic if it's two way and then you run up on a stoplight. It's going to be a mess for a couple of hours both in the morning and a couple of hours in the afternoon. The only other garages on Main Street really are serviced more by Short Street than they are actually right off of Main Street. And that's the Chase Bank and the PNC Bank. And then the last question, which is the same question we've been talking about, was the Rupp Arena issue. And that is the cost. and can we simulate the cost like we simulated your simulation machine does to put up new signs. Everything attendant to changing that back to Fouay. And I'm referencing primarily Main Street and Vine Street. I'm not the north and the south beyond that. have their other issues, but this is probably the most pressing. So do you have any number in your head or a range of numbers for the cost of doing that and simulate what that's going to cost? And then if we don't like it, are we going to turn around and take it all back down again? Which is a possibility. Let me answer your last question first. as far as cost goes. We are providing cost estimates for conversion for each of the streets. We did it for the north area, and we'd be doing it for the south and the central. And it's primarily just the hardware and the technology related to the traffic signals and some of the engineering at the intersections. Signing is, guide signing to an extent is part of that, but if we're talking about the dynamic stuff that changes depending on the time of day and the event and all that, that's at a different level, and we're not going to have estimates for that. I can say that to an extent we have accommodated the RUP plan in one of our high-growth scenarios, even though that, along with the whole downtown scene, has been a moving target. There's something new every week, and that's one of the reasons why it's taken us so long is because it keeps changing. And, you know, the discussions are where we are today, what makes the most sense in terms of what we can prognosticate what will happen. So we'll have construction cost estimates or approximations for some of that, but not the real high-level intelligent transportation system type of stuff. You talked about the special events in police traffic control. We've had meetings with a number, probably a dozen or more stakeholders, stakeholder groups one of those groups was with lexan police we talked specifically about traffic control for special events under a two-way downtown street scenario and the response that we got from them is that they can handle it they do that for uk football games at commonwealth stadium on some of the local streets so it's just a matter of putting manpower at the intersections and manually controlling the signals what you do have to have is you know a plan for that and so it was agreed upon by both parties that that all that needs to be in place before you take the first steps to to doing any kind of change from one way to two way but we did have that conversation with lexon police about that specific topic they did not see that as an obstacle the other thing as far as the parking garages and access to Main and Vine Street. We, most likely those would have to be confined to right in and right out. Right now under one-way flow, they're left in and left out. Because of the one-way flow, probably there would, on a garage by garage basis, and I talk about the major ones, you know, we would need to look and say, okay, does it need to be restricted to only right in and right out of what would be the impacts of if you allowed all movements. So there is the recognition that some limitations may have to be placed on the major garages on Main and Vine Street, but they're currently operating as a left in, left out just because of the way the one-way flow is. Very good. I believe I've used up my time, and I've lost my voice to those two things. I do believe he had gone back and answered all your questions, though. Very good. Thank you. next up is councilmember Akers thank you chair I appreciate the opportunity to hear this presentation as a non-member of the group and to ask some questions you mentioned the data for specifics of time delays and backups and travel times so that has not been determined as of yet is that correct we haven't published it yet we have numbers and we're still compiling and finalizing for the north area we do and I'm sorry I did not put the website address it's downtown Lex study I think it's dot-com if not it's dot org but if you it's downtown Lex study we published everything for the north area results and we'll do something similar for the other ones we have we're just finalizing the analysis and we want to start with presenting that information particularly those numbers to the policy advisory group and then work our way up from there And to that, I know that the vice mayor asked about the members of this policy advisory group. And so I just wonder if all council members with affected districts or affected areas of their districts shouldn't be included in the policy advisory group. And who determined who was on that and how often do they meet and all of those sorts of questions. Same thing for the stakeholders. I'm also curious about who that is included in the stakeholder groups and how they were selected. And the stakeholders with assistance, with the lead from from the mayor's office, from through Scott Shapiro and also from Chris King, director of planning, have identified those likely stakeholders that they believe were a representative cross section of everybody that's impacted. As far as the policy advisory group, I don't know why you shouldn't be involved. We don't have a set agenda in terms of meeting every third month or something like that. Because this thing has been such a change of flux, a state of flux, it's been more on a as-needed basis or when the time was instead of a set meeting date. I do know that we're going to have at least a couple coming up between now and summer just because we're getting to some critical milestones in the time which we need to reach out to those. But, you know, I don't. Okay. They would be the ones that contact about that. All the affected districts in the downtown area, it certainly would make sense to be represented. Sure. So I can attend. And, I mean, as you know and everyone knows, I mean, this is a hot topic, and especially in my district that involves several of these streets. So I would, you know, like to have more answers than questions myself whenever I'm asked. Do you have priorities of which of these would be completed first and any idea of how they would be paid for? This is really more about the feasibility of it. Is it feasible to pursue conversion? So, and ultimately we would not, other than saying it makes sense to do this first if this were to happen, we will stop at that point. So there's no schedule, there's no design for doing anything. This is simply, can it be done, if it can, or what are the impacts of doing it, and how would you do it? And so that's really what the purpose of our study is. So would your final report then also share or provide recommendations on whether you think yes to the north, no to the core, yes to the south, or any combination of that? We will provide a recommended plan based on decisions that are made, and that's been our purpose the whole time, not to make the recommendation if they should be done or not. Right. But if they are done, here's how it should be. Okay. And then I also am concerned. We just recently did renovations to South Limestone and Vine and Maine, adding parking spaces, adding bike lanes, adding wide sidewalks to facilitate pedestrian and bikes and streetscaping. And so to propose to take those out at all just seems crazy to me, for lack of better words. So I just, you know, again, I understand that you're just providing the data and the research and all of that. But I don't think that that's going to sit very well with the businesses or the citizens of the city who just recently paid for lots of those other improvements. And then to remove them would be a step back, I think. So I think that that's all of my questions. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, ma'am. Last up, Council Member Chris Ford. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you for the report. I've had the fortune to serve and become familiar with the process, serving on the advisory, the policy committee. We've only met just a few times, but that doesn't discount the great amount of work that you and your staff and your firm have put into it. I do recall last spring, last summer maybe, there was a big meeting, community meeting held at LTMS that was for the north area. Let's talk about decision points. I think that that is probably, and I don't know if you can speak to that, but in your presentation this afternoon, you've alluded a couple of times to the finality of your work on a feasibility standpoint, in large part, is based upon decisions that are going to be made here, I guess, in the near interim. You've also indicated that aside from North Lyme and North Upper, we don't have total control over these road improvements. So what can we, as a council, look forward to in regards to decisions? Who are going to make decisions? Who are the parties that are going to bring us recommendations? I think that's important to note because if not, it sounds as if we're heading towards another plan that's just going to collect dust on a shelf. Not to say that the data isn't constructive, but I understand that we've done this about two or three times here in the last 10, 15 years. So who from the administration can speak to me, thank you, and with your help, in regards to decision points that are going to impact your final work? I will let, if Chris King or Scott Shapiro would like to add to my comment, certainly invite them to do that. In terms of the decision makers, as far as I see it, Metropolitan Planning Organization, organization, which is members of this, some of the members of the council participate in that along with the state and some other stakeholders, the Irvin County Council itself, and then the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet. And, you know, I'm not sure ultimately how the decision making is going to work that way, but I'm just pointing out those involved in the decision making. before Scott comes I will just say of course North come on Scott if you would the North Lyman North Upper is in the first district proper and I hope to get a whole lot more feedback from residents I'm concerned as they are most of them about on street parking the loss thereof bike lanes that we've fought for a long time and then how we pay for it we've paid for this study I believe with an earmark. Right. I hope the data is good. Scott, can you help us in regards to the decision making? Sure. So there's there are a number of decision points. Certainly what's what's been guiding us is the policy advisory group, as well as the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet. And after that, certainly there is no decision that would be made around the roads that wouldn't go through the city council. Tom's right that while we have mostly control over the streets that are defined as the north side, all the other streets would necessarily involve the transportation cabinet as well. So they would all have to be involved in the decision making. So do we foresee that? so is the NPO going to bring us the planning organization are they going to bring us recommendations that only for example that we change north lime and north upper to who are going to bring these recommendations it has to start somewhere by comparison we are being encouraged to renovate Rupp Arena the leadership of our mayor he's doing that and there's no question at all about his leadership on that, and rightfully so, from where he sits. Where's the parallel in regards to two-way streets, or is there going to be one? The way I see it is that what the study is trying to do is follow the recommendations of those who are involved, including the MPO, the Transportation Cabinet, the administration, and the members of the policy advisory group. I think when the policy advisory group makes a recommendation on the mobility plan, that's something that then has to be discussed with the MPO and the transportation cabinet and the administration. And at that point, we can start to make some decisions through the Urban County Council. I think what we're going to see is that the streets that fall under the north side look as if they would be able to realize the benefits that we hope to get from two-way streets, which include ease of navigation, making the streets more pedestrian-friendly, calming traffic a bit, especially around schools and similar areas. So I think we can expect that that would be among the first things that would reach the city council. Mr. Chair, may I? Please proceed. This is pretty important. From what I've heard also, and help me here from the science side of it, what I'm hearing in the interim is that North Lime and North Upper could feasibly be changed. And then what I'm hearing about the core in the south sections are is that, one, we don't have total control of them and that they're much, much more complicated to do. how feasible would it be or would such a recommendation come to us that would say only to change North Lyme and North Upper? And how would that work in the scheme of things if the other pairs were not changed? Just to speak to how familiar I am, I live in North Flexon on the north part of the district. I'm on North Broadway, North Lime, and North Upper a few times a day, getting into and getting out of downtown, and I'm speaking solely to utility of traffic. So, for the north side, when we did the analysis, presumed that everything else stayed the same, so that Main and Vine were both one way as they are today, South Lime and South Upper. so we only or we isolated the north area and just in our model made it those streets that we talked about two-way and left everything else as it was. So that's part of the conclusion that we didn't see any major obstacles in making that conversion, aside with those special areas where we need to work out some detailed circulation plans for those issues related to the school operations or the opera house. So, Councilman, last question. Thanks so much. So just for illustration on North Line, coming from New Circle Road, you cross Loudoun. It's two-way, all the way. You come to 7th Street, and then it becomes one-way coming from Main Street. So if it were to be converted, it would be proposed that you would go up the hill on North Line all the way two-way. So it would be two-way from New Circle to 7th Street to Main Street. Yes. You would shift that point of conversion from 7th to Main. And only be able to make a right turn. If you're south on Limestone, once you got to Main Street, that's correct. Of course, if you're south on Limestone at 7th, you have to make a right turn once you get to 7th. Now, it would just shift that to Main Street under that scenario. Thank you so much, Mr. Chair. I'm going to be looking for guidance, of course, from our team here on the council and working with the administration. And personally, I'll be really trying to get information to my constituents, particularly in these areas, about what their concerns are. And you're part of the advisory group, aren't you? Yes, yes, sir. And our last meeting that we've attended probably was last summer. But I know that these guys have probably been hard at work. Well, this has engendered the discussion that an update usually would in my estimation. I guess just by way of closure, you're going to, you don't necessarily even come back here, but will you present a plan that's done or will you present something to be done first? Or what are the next steps specifically? Coming back here? Sure. Presents the results of the south area and the core area analysis. So really it would come back to us, I hesitate to say this, piecemeal, but it would come in terms of chunks that we could change reasonably. Digestible chunks. Okay. It's a whole lot of information. So that's why it's. And that was part of the driving force for taking downtown and dividing it up into smaller areas because those are all unique. I'm just asking to know, and I agree with it. It's a great approach. So you're saying that this committee would be the conduit as you begin to play these things out and not your policy advisory group. That's not my decision. I leave that to Scott. We're good either way. I think you're going to need council input somewhere along the way. I agree. And this is as broad a forum as you can get as an initial stroke. So I had asked for this by way of update. I want to kind of throw this back in your all's court and say when you're ready to come back with some part of the implementation, please let us know. We'll put you on the agenda as quickly as possible. How about that? Does that work, Scott? All right. Very good. Any other questions before we proceed? Thank you for your time today. We appreciate it very much. The sheer number of variables in this is just daunting when you think about your testing in so many ways. So thank you for that excellent work. All right. Next up is our discussion about the greenways, which was tendered to committee by Councilmember Masati, and this just says Greenway Manual and Plan. Do you want to make any comments before Mr. King? Yes, please. Randy, if you wouldn't mind putting that one picture up. I think there's a couple, which kind of precipitated this being put into committee. Is this the Flintstones picture? I'm sorry? the drum roll's coming yeah okay this shows the opportunity that's what a lot of uh no that's not me but that is a backyard of a one of the subdivisions and that is supposed to be where their greenway is and and uh i guess what my understanding is I know we've adopted the master greenway plan, but we haven't determined whether it's LFUCG or the developer who is responsible for taking care of them. And that's kind of what I wanted to discuss today. If we come any further on that, if we made a determination or just where we are on it. Thank you, Chair. That's an open limestone garden. That looks like a little bit of a Grand Canyon. Director King, would you like to take this issue? Thank you, Chair. Good afternoon. Go back to the PowerPoint. In way of framing this, we weren't exactly sure exactly what all issues were involved. And those of you involved in other committees of the Council know that the matter of greenways, I think, has actually traditionally been dealt with in the Environmental Quality Committee. And you had been receiving updates from time to time. at that time from Director of Environmental Policy, Susan Bush. Well, there's been a whole lot of work that's been going on with all the groups that are involved with Greenway in urban county government. I have a whole bunch of those folks back here behind me who have been doing the heavy lifting on this for many years. And I am here, since Susan is no longer with us, I have been kind of designated to be the spokesperson for the work of a whole lot of folks. and they are here to answer specific questions if I can't deal with those. But let me go ahead and just try to frame where we are. And we saw one picture. Here's a picture that is near and dear to me at the top there. About the time I started my career, this is the way we sort of considered greenways. We really didn't. We didn't even have a floodplain ordinance in the early 70s. and the areas that we now think of as greenways and we're trying to get to the next level and make community assets were basically a lot of backyards that flooded and sometimes even flooded homes. So as we start, let's remember why we are dealing with greenways, what the purposes of greenways are, and there are a whole bunch of them and a whole lot of benefits to actually having a greenway program and managing greenway as a program and as essential infrastructure in our community. There's the environmental aspects obviously and the flood control and the water quality benefits as we've now evolved into paying a lot more attention not just to flood water management to actually the management of the quality of the water and things of that. The greenways, if you've ever looked at the Greenway Master Plan and looked on how that helps define the quality of life and the character of our community. This particularly is driven home in the expansion area master plan, which really built its physical design around a greenway system in envisioning that. And the rest of the community also has a greenway master plan that helps pull the whole community together. Recreation. We've had a lot of discussion about recreation and health benefits that can be associated with greenways when certain greenways do become a part of the park system, have trail networks and things like that, even though not all greenways have those characteristics. And also providing us through those trails alternatives to automotive transportation for bicycle and pedestrian movement are all some of the significant benefits of greenways that we are trying to achieve in our community. So what have been the big issues that seem to keep coming up as we deal with it? Well, first of all, program management. The urban county government, for one reason or another, and this isn't a finger-pointing situation, it's an evolutionary thing, has never just embraced the Greenways as a full program needing to be managed, addressed, and considered as an essential part of our infrastructure. The recommendation for that goes back to the Greenway Master Plan, which is now over 10 years old. But for various reasons, it has just never really gotten full traction, although we've had a number of successes in the greenway program. Another issue is the treatment of the properties that become our greenways during development and after we have taken them in. What's the management? What can they be used for? What condition should they be in? And those are some issues that come up from time to time. The acquisition policies. Through the development process, there have been a lot of areas designated as greenways, areas that are planned for greenways, areas that have been set aside by the development community for greenways that the urban county government has not stepped up and taken the responsibility for that was envisioned. and that is also tied to the last bullet, the budget, the maintenance, and the fact that when we take those things, it's not actually a free ride completely, although we try to design them to maximize the environmental effects and minimize the maintenance costs associated with them. So this is what the issue is that this group, and again, I mentioned that those folks that are working on this day to day, each of them spending a small marked amount of their time to keep a Greenway program going. Environmental policy, water quality, engineering, planning, parks, all of these folks have done a great job limping along, giving what attention they can to the program without the benefit of having a unified management system. So, this group, and again it was has been meeting for well over a year since the last time an update was done for the Environmental Quality Committee to look at these issues and make specific recommendations. And today, with what we have put in your packet, we are really a significant watershed moment in moving all of this forward and what we're recommending at this time. So the first one is that we actually embrace the Greenway Network as a program and create a position of Greenway Coordinator, which, again, was recommended over 10 years ago, but has never been implemented. Have that position. Have a person whose responsibility it is day-to-day to coordinate between the urban county government agencies that would be involved in Greenway Maintenance and Management and also the public. And we did put a copy of this graphic in your packet. And my commissioner commented that if we ever go out to advertise for this position, we better not show this to the applicants because we might not get too many. When you take a look at all the different groups that this position would have to coordinate with, both inside and outside of government, but this graphic really does represent what is needed to make this work. Because I know we have groups out there willing to work with us, neighborhood groups, property owners, developers, and other advocates to make this work both inside and outside of government. So again, we think it's very important to have a Greenway coordinator in the group as a whole as recommended that it be housed in the commissioner's office within our department of planning, preservation, and development. And, you know, they would coordinate, develop management plans, handle education, and enforcement when necessary. Second, dealing with that issue of treatment during and post-development, we have updated our previous draft, which was many, many years old, and this was probably one of the most significant efforts that this in-house group undertook, to draft a new Greenway manual that would, in our mind, become a part of the development engineering manuals governing how properties and lands are managed during the development process. Just as important, we are proposing a companion document being a Greenway Operational Handbook to both lead the urban county government and its agencies in terms of how we manage the Greenways after we have control over the ones that become public Greenways. And not all of them are public, I should mention that. But the ones that are, we need internal management policies, and this is what we recommend. And again, I'll comment, and you'll see in a minute, that these are works in progress. But it's a very good time for these to be out there and begin the movement of the next level of those documents. The acquisition policies, we do propose that the government should begin a systematic programs of acceptance of these parcels that had been sitting out there plan to be a part of the Greenway Network that we haven't actually acquired. Now, we do know that we have to scale the acquisition program to the budget realities and the maintenance needs of the urban county government, and we would look for the coordinator to develop priorities for the acquisition program. Also, maintenance budget. We propose that Parks will be our lead administering the maintenance programs and that there would be an individualized management plan developed by the coordinator for each of the greenways. And Parks has been working, tracking and developing what we call a unit cost approach to greenway maintenance and the budget. So where do we go from here, the immediate next steps? The Greenway manual, we want to refer to the normal processes for the engineering manual updates, okay? So usually that involves Richard Walker and those folks and the holding of meetings, engaging the development community and others to review the draft that we have put out there and that's in your packet, and to move that in a logical fashion, to become just an operating part of the urban county government's engineering manuals. So, again, we want everyone to know it's not ready for adoption today, but we do feel it's very important to take this information that we have put out there and begin that process of massaging that work, finalizing that work, and making it part of the development regulation regime. As far as the upcoming budget, we will be seeking funding for the coordinator position, and so that will go through the normal budget process through the administration and through the council, and I'm sure will be discussed at a LINCS meeting coming in the not-too-distant future. And also the maintenance funding, that is also being worked on to develop the recommendations that would be, again, part of the FY15 budget process for the upcoming year. So I hope that has given you the big picture of where we are, where we see this going, and I am available, and again, a whole bunch of folks sitting behind me are also available to try to answer any questions that you may have at this time. Thank you, sir. Thank you very much. That takes up the draft operational handbook and draft. Greenway manual take up a large amount of our packet, so there's a lot to digest there. Yes, there is. I was going to go first back to Council Member Massadi. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Chris. I really appreciate you updating us on this. I know it's been a long period of time. I know how long it took us for the engineering manuals, and finally, we're here today on this. Do you have any idea about a maintenance budget? I mean, what you're looking at? I've had a lot of talk about that. I know in we're taking part of parks budget and we're taking part of water quality budget. I think we are also looking at the realities. I really think it's a little preliminary, but, you know, I think in the general range of $150K to $200K plus a year is what you're looking at, but that doesn't mean that the budget request this year will be anywhere near that because there are funds coming from different sources. It's being worked on. And those are for the areas that you said that we already have? But it may also allow others. But that's what we really need the coordinator position to help us figure out as we develop those management plans for each greenway and we find out whether there are champions out there in the community that will help with the management of the Greenway. You know, we have the friends of different creeks and things of that that we really think might develop as we move this kind of forward and have a Greenway coordinator that can work with those kinds of folks. What about the developer, the residential developer that works with these subdivisions and ends up with these pieces? Do they donate that to us, or do they sell that to us, Or do you work in tandem with them and say, look, you know, we need to make this, your neighborhood, not only this function for your neighborhood, but this is, in the big picture, a good thing for all of us? Typically in the development process, the ones we are looking at, it's usually a willing partnership where the developers do give that land to us. Again, what we're trying to make sure is that it's in acceptable form when we get it. And it hasn't been compromised that the development community has had the ability to perhaps use part of it in a reasonable and fair way, but not compromise it. So what we've had in some cases when we've taken over Greenway, we have to go in and immediately spend money to put it into a condition so that it can become a community asset. So we want to make sure that to the greatest extent we can, that when we get them, they're in good shape. So I see what you're saying, to have a sort of a solid partnership going forward on this. Again, in the typical development situation, the developers are glad to have this planned into a larger system. And I would say, too, that in the best scenario, that happens early, okay, early in the development process. So when the subdivision is being developed and people are making decisions about buying homes, They know that it's going to be a greenway. They know typically what facilities are planned, what type of greenway is it going to be, will it involve recreation, will it be mainly environmental management. Again, and that's what the coordinator can help with all that communication. And I guess one last question, and maybe premature, is do we know how much land we have or how many miles or however you quantify this that we have in these potential greenways that need to be addressed? If I'm not mistaken, we do have that number and can get it. I don't have it on the top of my head. I'm seeing all my companions back there. I was just kind of curious what we were looking at. We'd be glad to follow up and provide that. Okay. Thank you so much for your presentation. Appreciate it. Thank you, ma'am. And then Council Member Akers. That's what I was going to say. Thank you, Chair. Yes, ma'am. Chris, when developers donate this land or sign it over to us, do we have the option to say no? I mean, have we said no? Well, always, yes. I guess we've been saying kind of whoa, if not no, here for the past few years. But, again, those kinds of decisions should be early on. And, you know, I've lived personally, professionally through all eras of this, going from what you saw in that first slide when there was not even a floodplain ordinance. And, you know, say, buyer beware. You know, we've always built houses in the floodplain. You know, you had that kind of situation. To when we had floodplain, and the floodplain and what we now think of as greenway areas were basically in people's backyards in an easement. Right. There's a lot of heartburn, and then you've got people putting fences across it and things of that nature. The next year, it kind of evolved into calling homeowners associations, and it wasn't a part of any individual lot, but you had some greenways that were owned and managed by homeowners association, at least the grass part. The hardscape usually was managed by the urban county government, the drainage structures, control structures. Again, a lot of problems with that. Some neighborhoods are very adept at managing and collecting fees and doing what they need, but others just don't have the wherewithal to manage a cohesive, basically private park and greenway system. So, you know, around in the late 90s and early 2000s, as a part of a review of all those, is when the urban county government and through consultants and recommendations, basically said it needed to be more of a program owned and managed in large degree by the urban county government. And again, the expansion area master plan even made that pretty much a dictate in the expansion area because it was felt we are the best stewards of that in most cases. Yeah, I was surprised to see that you were presenting this presentation, I guess the presenter today, because I thought that parks maintained most of our green spaces, and so I thought that green spaces were under the purview of parks. So it was interesting that it's really under planning. I think that that's a good place for it, but I just, because of the maintenance and budget, I was a little bit surprised. But I have several green spaces in the 2nd District, as you probably know, and with all the new development, there's lots of land that's been donated, and they have signs that say future Greenway Trail. home of a future Greenway Trail. And where I live in particular, that sign has been there for probably 14 years. And it's actually, I mean, when it rains, it floods, and it's a flowing body of water. There could never be anything, I don't think, actually constructed a path or trail. So I'm just curious. That's why I asked if we're allowed to say no. I mean, if this is never going to become a usable trail, then why would we want to own it or maintain it and have it be a burden on the city versus, I don't know who really should be responsible, but maybe the HOAs. And I understand those problems for HOAs, too, to manage and maintain them. Well, let me make a comment first, generally. Again, Greenway Program is not under planning. Again, I think I drew the short straw. Actually, no, I was glad to do it because we have been working on this. And, again, if you saw all the groups that work on it, It's like equal partnership of all those different divisions. Again, basically trying to put their finger in the leak since we haven't had a person dedicated to dealing with this. And again, that's been recommended that we have somebody dedicated to doing it basically for over 10 years. The other thing I want to comment, it's very important to understand that not every greenway has recreation or a trail as its goal. I would say most every greenway does have an environmental basis at its core. So there are a lot of them that we should take and maintain and manage. We've been doing a lot of natural plannings, basically things to enhance water quality, even if there isn't going to be a trail or anything of that nature. So one of the things the manual does is talk about recreational greenways and environmental, the different types of greenways that we have. And again, the ones where we can maximize the use and to have trails, have recreation, have exercise, that's just added benefits. And, you know, Park has agreed that those kinds of trails in particular are kinds of greenways they will be very much involved in, but they've also, we'll take our lead in the management of all the greenways as we see it now again with the idea of having one group primarily responsible for that. In the master plan or in this guide that you provided is each Greenway space identified as recreational environmental etc etc as its I guess goal or? I think in I'm trying to go back I'm going back again the Greenway master plan being over 11 years old I can't remember I think it probably did But, again, that would be part of what we see the coordinator doing. Okay. Doing that. Maybe updating that. Individualized management plan for all the greenways. Again, what we do expect that we'd have a template for greenways of this type that would be portable to other ones, and then greenways of this type we'd have this kind of a management plan. I think that would be really helpful. I think I agree that someone needs to take ownership and someone needs to direct the usage of these and maximize what they do for the community and the benefits. Thank you very much. Thank you, Chair. You're welcome. Thank you. Director, just a couple of follow-ups, and we'll close this out. Have you asked for a Greenway coordinator in your budget request this year? That will actually be in my commissioner's budget. we have felt, and I will say this, that the original Greenway Master Plan recommended this position be in the Chief Administrative Officer's Office. And now they may get human resources. I'm not going to. No, but please remember, 11 years ago. This just really took a turn. Let me tell you what our thinking is. 11 years ago we had a very different organizational structure for the urban county government, particularly the CAO's office had a very large staff and had a number of divisions. The Division of Administrative Services, which planning was a part of, was one of the divisions that reported directly to the CAO. So we knew now that the way the government has evolved over the last 10 years, it didn't make sense. However, given the fact that this person is going to have to be working with another of different departments, we felt that definitely from an organizational standpoint, and this has been my experience, if you're working, say, as an administrative officer under a commissioner, you can get that appointment with this commissioner or communicate with that across government, and it's much more effective rather than somebody buried in the bottom of a division having that responsibility. So you did ask. Having been that guy buried in the bottom of the meeting trying to get. So you now feel we were at the point and you added this to your budget request, or we're not there and you waited again? I still don't know. Well, again, I believe it will be in Commissioner Paulson's budget, and Commissioner can speak to that. I'm putting it in Sally's budget. No, I'm going to put it. We are making that request in my budget. To be in your budget. Correct. Report to you. Yes. Very good on both counts. Then, the manual and the handbook that are in the packet are both dated January 31st. Have they not been around before this? Has that been vetted before? Well, again, we put out a draft about five years ago that came to whatever council committee was involved at that time. Yes. I will say what happened at that time, that was when the consent decree and all the water quality changes was really just happening. And it kind of got sucked into that effort, and so it never really got a life of its own like it needed. We had some preliminary discussions with the development community who identified some concerns. So basically about a year ago, we all, all the divisions working on it felt, okay, we need to just take what we started with, work, and we had probably a dozen at least working sessions with every one of these folks, all of us in the room going page by page, line by line, with our office kind of being the editor-in-chief of that process. in order to put out a Greenway manual draft that we think fits where we are now. And so that's what we are now putting out there, again, to engage stakeholders and actually hopefully move to adoption as part of the development manuals. So is the document brand new, partially new, kind of new, somewhat new? All of those things. And the handbook is completely new? The handbook is new, although the original drafts that we had did try to speak a little bit to internal and external. And this time we felt it more important that we have, you know, something that the private sector or the development community knew spoke to them. Right. And then a separate document that really spoke to us in the House. So now you have as part of your next phase some sort of gathering of input from affected stakeholders? Yes. And how long do you think that iteration? You know, we have not had the chance to coordinate that yet. Again, we've been very focused on getting the draft done and out because we needed that starting point, And we knew that with this update coming, this was the perfect opportunity to kind of reset the whole process and move it forward from here. In my opinion, we will keep this in committee. Oh, is Kevin on? I'm sorry. Council Member Stenet, I didn't see that you had signed up. Excuse me. Take your time. Move the chair. Well, no, I was trying to move us along, but you can go right ahead. Thank you. And, Chris, going back to the budget, I know you answered earlier you weren't sure exactly how many dollars. When we say budget, are we talking about the money used for mowing, both in parks and environmental quality budgets, water quality budgets? All the aspects. Combining that together and pulling it out? Well, we're looking at, yes, you know, instead of looking at this division or this doing that, we're looking at trying to coordinate that together. But, you know, we're talking about everything from mowing to invasive species management, plantings for environmental enhancement, and all those things. Didn't we have a department that used to do that called property management under one roof? We did, and we split it up in 2005 into all these other areas, and now we're talking about bringing it under a new coordinator of, what, greenways or whatever? So I think we're coming in the whole department. We're looking at one position to be the quarterback. And this one position will oversee that budget. Is that the idea to bring all those budgets under this one office? And that will oversee all the it will oversee it again. I think the budgets for the different operations may be in the individual divisions budgets. But again, there will be one person whose job it is every day to be the quarterback on all those different activities. And including cleaning out storm drains or is that still being? Water quality? I think basic maintenance of storm drains and storm sewers would not be a part of the Greenway program. But the actual grass system, because we have storm drains inside detention basins. So I'm trying to get a feel, because right now our problem is we don't know who to call. If a detention basin is in a park and it needs to be maintained, some people call parks, some people call water quality. I want to get rid of all that. This is an item that's also in my committee, the issue of consolidated Greenway responsibilities, which actually falls under this. Same topic. So I'm trying to clean up some of that confusion too within government as to who's supposed to do it and the budgets. Get them all under one roof. I keep making this pitch, but if we had the Greenway coordinator and we made that part of their duties, it would be that person's job to worry about how do we deal with it behind the scenes. You'd have the one person, the public would have that one person to call and contact who would be responsible for follow-up. Fair enough. I'm ready to see something move on this. We've been talking about it for 10 years, literally. So I'm ready to see something move forward on this. And thank you for taking the initiative and talking to us today about it. I know Sally's looking forward to having it in her area. It's the Catch Anything office, right, the CAO? That's right. Chris, thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you all. As I was beginning to wind up, I believe we'll keep this issue in committee because you still need to come back, I guess, after your stakeholder stuff and to give us, I don't know, the final versions of these or whatever updated version for us to potentially take action on? Would that be the right way? I think so, and I think eventually, if I'm not mistaken, and if I'm wrong, I'll be corrected by anyone standing behind me, that the council typically adopts new development manuals at some point when they become part of the engineering manuals. Whatever that normal process is, we will follow that. If it leads to you for adoption, we'll be back for that. if it doesn't lead to you for adoption, we'll be here to report. Well, I think you're hearing some interest in this, so I think we'll find a way to turn a dashed line into a straight line and get it done. So I would encourage you to go ahead with your stakeholder review because this body would want to see what others thought of what you've proposed before we adopt it and forward it to the full council. So let's keep it moving. I appreciate the discussion about other manuals, but I think there's specific interest in this one. So, I mean, while I'm not trying to pin you down for a quarterly report, let's get a critical path in place and make sure everybody's on board. Very good. Anyone else? You're good? All right. Thank you very much. Next on our agenda is the four-way stop at Glendover and Valley Road, as brought to us by Councilmember Beard, that begins on page 84 of our packet. Shall I start with you, sir? Thank you. How are you? and it seems to go on forever. But it does say four-way. By the way, it is a three-way stop. It's not a four-way stop. So noted and corrected. Thank you, sir. Well, it makes it a little trickier to deal with. We have been batting this around for several years. We are at the point now we have done some visiting with neighborhood associations. I think there's one letter back to us about that, but most of it's been verbal. Valley Road and Glendover, if anybody is familiar with the Glendover piece, there is an angle off of Jesslyn Drive which goes to Nicholsville Road and then it turns I guess east almost too east at a 45 degree angle and Valley Road comes out It starts at actually one of the Southern Heights Neighborhood Association area, Tahoma Road, Shady Lane in that area. And there's a lot of traffic through there to get to Central Baptist Hospital. McDonald actually terminates at Shade Lane on one side and the hospital emergency room area at the other side, and there's a lot of traffic that is generated, actually not so much by our folks as it is like Nicholsville, for instance. At certain times, there's times when Nicholsville is not the best option for somebody that's trying to get to an emergency room. And so they'll scoot over to Tate's Creek and come in Tate's Creek and then come in the back way, so to speak. We don't meet any of the various criteria to actually do this. Although traffic engineering says that they wouldn't want to stand in their way as long as we could do some construction and create an island where this is. And really, I guess we should have, if you look over at the pictures, you can see kind of what we're dealing with. So they have suggested, if you look at the picture at the bottom of page 87, And they are suggesting an island out in the middle. I'm not sure that the neighborhood, especially the immediate neighborhood, would like that very much. But they have, as a neighborhood association, they have been very vocal about having something there because of the stop sign on Valley Road where it, if you look at the top picture, existing stop. I promised them that I would bring this to you all. We'd had several meetings on this, and it's not going to break my heart if we don't do it. There are some strange situations, though. over on page 86. To get a stop sign, you have to have a collision history of five collisions in a 12-month period. That seemed to be a bit extreme. The traffic on Glendover Road, while it doesn't meet the manuals, on eastbound glendover it is a 25 mile per hour signage through there going eastbound 29.56 miles per hour which is 18 percent over the limit and coming from the other direction i guess people are trying to get over either to the hospital or just to Nicholsville Road, 36.08, a big disparity between the two, 44% over the 25 miles per hour. I'm suggesting maybe that we hold this off for a while, or we can pull it off and I can bring it back at another time. because if we're going to do as traffic engineering says, and we need some prices, as you know, some of those... Because that's not in here. The potential changes to the intersection are not included in this packet in terms of... Well, they have a little drawing here right out there in the middle where they want to put an island. There is I'm hearing you say we need a little more diligence here and we can hold off. I do have one speaker. It would be fine to do so. Again, it's something that we've been talking about for four years or better. I don't know, Vice Mayor, maybe you had this same situation yourself when you were there and I know your feelings on this. and I was really not going to bring this back or bring it to the committee until we had all of our ducks in a row. But anyway, you all have been exposed to what we're up to and we'll maybe set it aside and we'll either bring it back, whichever you wish, Chair. Very good. Let's take Vice Mayor Gorton first. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. And Councilmember Beard, thank you very much. Councilmember Beard, this was not an issue when I represented the 4th District. I believe the concern by a few folks is on page 87, where you see the Valley Road come into Glendover. There are a few folks who have difficulty seeing there, and I appreciate that Councilmember Beard was willing to meet with me and Jim Woods about this. And Jim Woods and traffic engineering did look into a traffic circle at my request. And if I recall, there wasn't really enough space to do one properly. although I do know of lots of little tiny neighborhood intersections that have them in other cities. But Council Member Beard illuminated the fact that this does not meet any of the warrants to put in a three-way stop. And I just simply wanted to point out what I pointed out in my email to you yesterday, that traffic engineering on page 86 did say that installing the multi-way stop without the added intersection improvements would probably increase the potential for collisions. So I think that I'm glad that you are willing to pull this off until we can get some more definitive information. And if it's true that the neighborhood doesn't want an island, then we have a different problem. So I don't know where the input is on that. And I also wanted to ask Council Member Beard if it comes back, if he could bring some input from those other neighborhoods. Well, sure. We do have that one letter from one neighborhood. No, that's fine. We can bring the documentation. So I agree that if it comes back, it should come back with a budget proposal and exactly what that budget proposal means, if it means all of these intersection improvements, and then to find out if that's exactly what the neighborhoods want. All right, we do have two neighbors here today. Mr. Wester, is that it? Would you like to make, we have a, thank you, Vice Mayor. I'm just trying to squeeze it off. Excuse me. Mr. Wester, we have a three-minute limit for public comment. If you give us your name and address. My name is William, sorry? I was saying our meeting needs to end by 3 o'clock, so we may not be able to vet all this out, but if you'd make your point as concisely as possible. Sure. Thank you. My name is William Wester. I live in the Southern Heights Neighborhood Association. and I've been in contact with Mr. Woods about this for quite some time. His latest input to me was that it was an extremely dangerous intersection and that the three stop signs, they were in favor of. Now, as far as the speeding up and down the road, I have personally been passed by a car going 70 miles an hour up and down this road, and also what you're not pointing out is at the end of this road is Glendover Elementary School. So you have about 2,000 cars speeding up and down that road with the kids. They have no way to cross that intersection because there's no walkway. So basically all the children that live across on this side from that picture, they all have to jaywalk every day. They have to look both ways and then run across the street. It's extremely unsafe. Last January, a car coming from Valley was about 35 yards away from the stop sign that it just went through. Another car came streaking down this way, couldn't make the turn, head-on collision, totaled both vehicles, put both people in the hospital, and closed down the road for three hours. The police officers were there and were appalled by the intersection and the amount of traffic that goes through there. Now, I have here, we did a survey. I'm on the Traffic Committee of Southern Heights Neighborhood Association. It was 70% want those three stop signs. And that's pretty much the same for everybody in the neighborhood. It came out to right about 68%, including the 13th on Glendover. On that stretch, it was 10 to 3 in favor of the stop signs. It's just unsafe. And basically, there is no way for anybody in a wheelchair, walker, jogger, school student to get across that safely every morning. and there's probably during the day, and I'm sure Mr. Woods come up with a number, but there are probably 3,500 vehicles that use that intersection a day. And that's, it's, I've seen three accidents in the past six months. So I don't know, you know, if they're reporting the accidents or whatnot, but it is an incredibly unsafe intersection. And there's no crosswalk for the safety of the students. Do you want to leave us with a copy of your, what was it, a petition or a study? What did you have? Yeah, I would like you all to make copies of them so I could keep. We'll just take it with you and send one back to us because we might not have that capability on this floor. But I think it's interesting. It's something we want to have in the packet for our next conversation. Okay. All right. Thank you. Thank you, sir. And then Mr. Dreyer, Scott Dreyer. Welcome. Yeah, my name is Scott Dreyer, and I actually live on Edgemoor Drive, which is around the corner between Valley and where Jesland turns. And I've got a son who walks home from school every day, and there's seven other students that walk home from school every day on my street. And the first day of school, we had to take my son on the street and explain to him how he has to run across the street as safely as he can to get home every day. If he was to try to come home across crosswalks from Glendover School, he'd have to walk to Albany Road, all the way to Albany Road, loop around Albany to Nicholasville Road, walk up Nicholasville Road, and then back on Edgemoor to get home every day, which is three times as long and a lot more dangerous. That crosswalk is desperately needed for my street, for my children to get home from school every day. There's, like I said, there's seven other children that are at Glendover that walk every day with their parents or by themselves off of that street. And it's needed, and it really is. And there's just a bad neighborhood to try to get home to. Edgemoor is one of those streets, too. It's funny that it has sidewalks on it. So, you know, it's compounded by the fact that you're running across a busy street onto a street that has no sidewalks itself once you get onto it. So you've got some deep lots on Edgemore. Deep lots, but not the front. I should have pushed him back five more feet and put sidewalks in. That's right. I appreciate you both taking time to come down to be with us today. We're going to keep this issue in committee and look for some more background on it. I'm sorry, anything else? Yes, ma'am. I'm sorry. Yes, Vice Mayor. I appreciate the neighbors coming down. And so I'd ask Mr. Woods to address the, Mr. Wester said that you said this is an incredibly dangerous intersection, and yet the study did not show that in terms of speed or collisions. So can you kind of help me understand those two opposite things? Sure. I got involved in the project after Brad Frazier moved up to engineering. This study was done, I think, in 2012. After I got involved in it, I looked at it, and I came to the conclusion that this intersection could be a multi-way stop without putting $12,000 worth of improvements into it, which I think is what the initial estimate is. The traffic circle would have been about 20,000, but I think with putting some little red flashing lamps on top of the stop signs and putting some handicap ramps in there and some stop bars and stuff, we'd probably make it work. So is it a dangerous intersection, the statistics? There's one collision in three years. I think it's, I don't know if I necessarily called it dangerous, but I characterize it as confusing and it has potential for conflict. I think the history, accident history, is not, obviously didn't meet the warrants for a multi-way stop. And as a matter of fact, the volume. But just looking at the intersection of the angle and the layout of it, it's very confusing, has potential for danger. Plus, there are school children that traverse across the intersection stuff. So we don't object to putting in the multi-way stop. We think we make it happen. If you can improve the intersection. We can. What is the traffic volume? Is it 18? In here it says 1,843 vehicles. I don't have the ADT, the average daily. It's got the vehicles per hour here in the report. There may be 3,500 a day. I don't have that number. Okay. Thank you. But it obviously didn't meet the volume warrants, the federal warrants for a multi-way stop application. Thank you. Mr. Chair, I would just ask that when this comes back, we have in writing the estimate of the cost of all the intersection improvements that you recommend, which are shown on here, and what the traffic volume per day is, and how we can make it safer, and what it'll cost. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you, sir. Can you also include the recommendation of how children get home safely on a street they can't get to? You know, I'm going to let you talk with him individually about that. That kind of follows out of our purview in the last four minutes of our meeting here, but something you might take up with him individually. Council Member Stennett, did you want to make an update or did you want to wait? Well, I would simply like a two-minute update and let us know when the start day of the project is going to be is number one and where we're at in getting to that start date. This is item number five in our agenda, Todd's Road Widening Project Update. Two minutes or less. Please. The left date was May, so I want to know where we're at before or after that and what phase we're in now to get to that start date? Right now we are in the right-of-way acquisition phase. We have 80 parcels to acquire. We had to do 24 appraisals. Those have been done, and they've been reviewed. So our next step is sending out the offers, and so those will be going out this month. Then we're also going to begin the utility relocation phase. Kentucky American Water is going to be starting at the end of the month. KU will start this month. Clean B Gas will start in March. And both Windstream and Time Warner will start after KU is finished. The right-of-way acquisition is a big unknown, but right now we're projected to start in the fall of this year with about an 18-month schedule. So not May? Not May. So have we relayed that to the appropriate neighborhood associations and council members because we've had a meeting the other night and everyone thinks it's May, June. So what's fall to you? It's going to be the fall. And actually, I've started getting that word out. I mean, I haven't told everybody yet. Well, can you give me a what's fall? I mean, are we shooting for September 1? I mean, I can project we've been shooting for probably October 1st. But that, again, that is contingent upon all of the right-of-way being acquired and not having to condemn property and people signing the documents when they get them and not delaying and not going on vacations and stuff like that. Understand. You asked and answered but may not be pleased. Is that it? No, I asked and answered, and maybe we need further discussion because I think this is symptomatic of other projects that we have going with Clay's Mill, Lee's Down. It goes back to our construction management and project management and timing. I mean, winter is the best time to get the acquisitions done, obviously, because very little construction can happen until our ground thaws out, so to speak. Okay. But I'm satisfied for today. Thank you. For today. Thank you. I would say to the committee, if you look at the issues list, which we did pare down last time, we have three or four things outlined possibly for our meeting next month, but I don't really see any other agenda items here. At this time, I'd ask for a motion to adjourn. Motion and a second. All those in favor? Opposed, like, signed. Thank you. Thank you.