# Environmental Quality and Public Works Committee - November 17, 2015 > Auto-transcribed civic record · November 17, 2015 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/3829 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/3829?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2015-11-17 - **Last revised**: November 17, 2015 - **Length**: 19,383 words > ⚠️ **Auto-generated content.** Audio from the official Granicus video was auto-transcribed with OpenAI's open-source Whisper large-v3-turbo model, run locally by The Lexington Times. Structured facts were extracted with GPT-4o; the narrative summary was written by Anthropic Claude. Verbatim wording may contain errors. See [methodology](https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/about/methodology) or [report a correction](mailto:editor@lexingtonky.news). --- ## Meeting Overview The Environmental Quality & Public Works Committee met on November 17, 2015, at 1:00 PM with Farmer presiding as the committee chair. The committee addressed seven agenda items during the session, with eight total votes taken throughout the meeting. Only two items were approved during the session: the committee summary and a Snow & Ice Control Plan Update. The remaining five agenda items—including Downtown Speed Limits, Maintenance of Bike Trails and Sidewalks, Pavement Management Update, Division of Water Quality Projects Report, and Items Referred to Committee—were all tabled for future consideration. No public comments were heard during this meeting. ## Attendance The following members were present at the November 17, 2015 meeting: • Farmer • Stinnett • Kay • Moloney • J. Brown • Gibbs • Evans • F. Brown • Hensley **Absent:** • Mossotti No members arrived late to the meeting. ## Votes and Decisions The committee took eight votes during the November 17, 2015 meeting, with seven passing unanimously and one passing by a 7-2 margin. **Meeting Minutes Approval** Evans motioned to approve the September 15, 2015 Planning and Public Works Committee Summary, seconded by Stinnett. The motion passed unanimously 9-0, with all members voting in favor: Farmer, Stinnett, Kay, Moloney, J. Brown, Gibbs, Evans, F. Brown, and Hensley. **Snow and Ice Control Plan** F. Brown motioned to adopt the service levels and accumulation amounts for the Snow & Ice Control Plan, seconded by Evans. The motion passed unanimously 9-0 with all nine members supporting. **Sidewalk Plan** Gibbs motioned to accept the sidewalk plan as proposed, seconded by J. Brown. This was the only contested vote of the meeting, passing 7-2 on a roll call vote. Voting in favor were Evans, Farmer, Gibbs, Kay, Moloney, Stinnett, and J. Brown. F. Brown and Hensley voted against the proposal. **Snow Plan and Budget Recommendations** Evans motioned to adopt the Snow Plan as presented, including recommendations for the FY2017 budget, seconded by J. Brown. The motion passed unanimously 9-0. **Snow Removal Contract Funding** Kay motioned to approve the request to move forward with funding the RFP to contract for snow removal in FY2016, seconded by F. Brown. Kay then amended the motion to include total funding for FY16 of $288,034 for 11 mobilizations, also seconded by F. Brown. Both the original motion and amendment passed unanimously 9-0. **Storm Sewer System Report** F. Brown motioned to accept the report of the Municipal Separate Storm Sewer System, seconded by Hensley. The motion passed unanimously 9-0. **Adjournment** Kay motioned to adjourn the meeting, seconded by Hensley. The motion passed unanimously 9-0. ## Budget and Financial Actions The meeting addressed one financial appropriation related to winter weather preparations for the current fiscal year. **Snow Removal Funding** The council considered an appropriation of $288,034 for snow removal operations in FY2016. This funding allocation was presented to ensure adequate resources are available for winter maintenance activities during the current fiscal year. *Note: Specific resolution numbers, vendor information, and transcript timestamps were not available in the provided meeting materials.* ## Contested Items The November 17, 2015 meeting featured one contested item that generated significant debate among council members. **Sidewalk Plan Proposal** The primary point of contention during the meeting centered on a sidewalk plan proposal that ultimately passed by a narrow 7-2 vote. The disagreement focused on two key areas: budgetary impacts and municipal priorities. Council members who opposed the proposal raised concerns about the financial implications of the sidewalk plan, questioning whether the municipality could afford the associated costs without impacting other essential services. The debate also touched on broader questions of priority-setting, with some members arguing that other infrastructure or community needs should take precedence over sidewalk improvements. Despite the opposition, the majority of the council supported moving forward with the sidewalk plan, resulting in the 7-2 approval. The split vote highlighted the challenging balance local governments face when allocating limited resources among competing community needs. The contentious nature of this item demonstrated the council's willingness to engage in substantive debate over municipal spending priorities, even when it meant not reaching unanimous consensus on infrastructure improvements. *Note: Specific transcript timestamps are not available for this meeting.* ## Approval of Committee Summary The committee reviewed and approved the summary from their previous meeting held on September 15, 2015. This agenda item was the first order of business for the session. The discussion involved key participation from committee members Evans and Stinnett, who addressed the contents and accuracy of the September 15th meeting summary. The committee members reviewed the document to ensure it properly reflected the discussions, decisions, and actions taken during the previous session. Following their review and discussion of the meeting summary, the committee voted to approve the document as presented. The approval confirms the official record of the September 15, 2015 meeting proceedings and allows it to stand as the formal documentation of that session's activities. This routine administrative action ensures proper documentation and continuity of the committee's work, providing an accurate historical record of their deliberations and decisions for future reference. ## Snow & Ice Control Plan Update David Holmes and Susan Plueger presented updates to the Snow & Ice Control Plan during this agenda item. The presentation covered service levels and sidewalk clearance procedures as part of the plan's revisions. F. Brown also participated in the discussion of the snow and ice control updates. The speakers addressed various aspects of the municipality's winter maintenance operations, focusing on how snow and ice removal services would be delivered and what standards would be maintained for sidewalk clearing. The updated plan appears to establish or modify the protocols for winter weather response, including the prioritization of different types of infrastructure and the methods used for snow and ice removal on both roadways and pedestrian areas. Following the presentation and discussion, the Snow & Ice Control Plan Update was approved by the meeting participants. *Note: Specific transcript timestamps are not available for this agenda item, so readers should refer to the full meeting recording to locate the detailed discussion of the snow and ice control plan updates.* ## Downtown Speed Limits Agenda item 3, regarding downtown speed limits, was scheduled for discussion during the November 17, 2015 meeting but was not conducted due to time constraints. The item was tabled without any presentation or debate taking place. No speakers addressed this topic, and no specific concerns or proposals were raised during the meeting. The discussion will need to be rescheduled for a future meeting to allow adequate time for consideration of downtown speed limit issues. ## Maintenance of Bike Trails and Sidewalks Agenda Item 4, addressing the maintenance of bike trails and sidewalks, was scheduled for discussion during the November 17, 2015 meeting but was not conducted due to time constraints. The item was tabled without any presentation or debate taking place. No speakers addressed this topic, and no specific concerns or proposals regarding bike trail and sidewalk maintenance were raised during the meeting. The outcome was that the discussion was postponed to a future meeting date. ## Pavement Management – Update Agenda item 5, the Pavement Management Update, was scheduled for discussion during the November 17, 2015 meeting but was not conducted due to time constraints. The item was tabled without any presentation or discussion taking place. No speakers addressed this topic, and no information was presented regarding the city's pavement management program, current road conditions, maintenance schedules, or budget considerations that may have been planned for this update. The item will presumably be rescheduled for a future meeting to allow adequate time for the pavement management discussion. ## Division of Water Quality Projects Report Agenda Item 6, the Division of Water Quality Projects Report, was scheduled for discussion during the November 17, 2015 meeting but was not conducted due to time constraints. The item was tabled without any presentation or discussion taking place. No speakers presented information on water quality projects, and no specific concerns or issues were raised regarding divisional activities or ongoing initiatives. The meeting agenda included this item for informational purposes, but the session concluded before reaching this portion of the scheduled business. The outcome was that the Division of Water Quality Projects Report was postponed to a future meeting date to allow adequate time for proper presentation and discussion of water quality matters. ## Items Referred to Committee Agenda item 7, "Items Referred to Committee," was scheduled for discussion during the November 17, 2015 meeting but was not conducted due to time constraints. The item was tabled without any presentation or debate taking place. No speakers addressed this agenda item, and no specific committee referrals were discussed or processed during the meeting. The decision to table this item appears to have been made to manage the meeting's time allocation for other pressing agenda matters. The outcome of this agenda item was that it remained unresolved and would presumably need to be addressed at a subsequent meeting when sufficient time could be allocated for proper consideration of any committee referrals. --- ## Decisions - **Motion** — passed (9-0): Approval of the September 15, 2015 Planning and Public Works Committee Summary - **Motion** — passed (9-0): Adopt the service levels and accumulation amounts for Snow & Ice Control Plan - **Motion** — passed (7-2): Accept the sidewalk plan as proposed - **Motion** — passed (9-0): Adopt the Snow Plan as presented, including recommendations for the FY2017 budget - **Motion** — passed (9-0): Approve as amended the request to move forward with funding the RFP to contract for snow removal in FY2016 - **Motion** — passed (9-0): Amend the motion to include a total funding for FY16 of $288,034 (11 mobilizations) - **Motion** — passed (9-0): Accept the report of the Municipal Separate Storm Sewer System - **Motion** — passed (9-0): Adjourn the meeting --- ## Full transcript . Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. All right, everyone, I need to have your attention, please. We're going to start our meeting now. If you would, as this is our first meeting as a council or as a city after the bombings in Paris. I know the mayor may take action later at our other meeting, but at this meeting, at this time, noting that we have such a history with our name Fayette, with our city of Paris, and our county of Bourbon and our city of Versailles. It's for sales here. It's Versailles there. I just want us all to pause, stand up, and have a moment of silence for the people of Paris and all those that have perished there. Thank you. Amen. Thank you all. All right. Now, if you would, we'll move to our summary from our October meeting from the 20th. It takes up the first five pages here. Are there any of these are some voluminous minutes? We've looked at them partially in other matters before the council. At this time, I'm wondering, are there any additions and or corrections to these as submitted? And if not, I ask for a motion to approve. We have a motion by Council Member Mazzotti, second by the Vice Mayor. All those in favor? Like signed. Thank you. All right. We've given staff a lot of time, and they've given us a lot of expertise back on the snow and ice control plan. What is in our packet today is basically the outcome group of things that we have directed them to do. They're here to make what I would call a short presentation to make sure that what they're doing and what we ask them to do are the same thing. I guess, Commissioner, are you going to lead that effort? Sure. Please. So the chair has asked us just to give a brief overview. What we're going to lay out is what changes have been made to the snow and ice control plan for the winter of 2015-2016, which you all got a copy of. And as the chair mentioned, basically the changes are ones in which came out of conversations and directions from you all in the process. This began last April when after the storm was over and we were into spring. We had a meeting with internal to talk about what changes need to be done. We also met with outside agencies, Lex Tran, Fayette County Schools, the Sheriff's Office in the U.K., and also conducted some extensive council member feedback on an individual basis from June until November to get your all's thoughts and inputs on what changes needed to be made. It resulted in the review process of adding an additional 109 lane miles to our snow ranking system. Those are reflected in the map in which you all have been provided citywide copies of and districtwide copies of for each individual council member. We also have, instead of talking about priorities, gone to talking about ranks. The RANKS system is one that is based on traffic volume, access to public transportation, emergency services, schools, buses, and it's designed to help the efficiency and effectiveness of our snow removal process. It's also designed for connectivity between neighborhoods and streets, which is sort of the key to all the rankings if you start looking at how they are laid out from red to yellow and so forth. At Ural's Direction, we have come back with plans on how to increase the capacity of the urban county government to deal with snow events. The plan that you all in the committee approved and is for readout in work session today, also included in the work session packet, It is the financial budget amendment to allow the $288,000 for the 11 mobilizations that you all approved in committee so that we will have five major thoroughfares being plowed for every measurable snow event that occurs in the city to free up five LFUCG trucks that will allow them to be able to do 300 additional lane miles in a 24-hour period of time. This is the contractor integration map that shows you where the contractors will be coming to all measurable snow events, assuming that you all passed the contract coming on Thursday. And at Ural's request, we came up with a service level and accumulation ranking for level one through level three. and it talks about what will occur in each type of snow event under those different levels. The critical thing on level three that we, in all of these different levels, one, two, and three, our contractor integration person will, they will be doing the five roads that we talked about previously. In level three, we will be looking to add additional contractors because at this stage, we need all the help we can get, and that's sort of where we are in terms of talking. That's eight inches and above. You also directed that you wanted us to come up with a snow removal plan for sidewalks. we're proposing to do that in a three-year sort of ramp up to it, since this is a new process for us. In fiscal year 216, we will have ranks also for the snows within a 24-hour, 48-hour, and a 96-hour period of time. And in your readout for the committee coming on to work session, you also agreed to the new equipment, which I think you passed in the discussion of the fund balance previously. This is the map that shows the sidewalks under the different party rankings that we will be doing this winter. We also, at your request to improve communications, 311 has stepped up and has said that they will be the single point of contact for citizens during snow events. They will staff 24-7 during the snow events, and we also will be being able to use route wear that's being installed into all our snow vehicles to keep track and be able to inform you all better of where we have plowed and where we are going to plow during different periods of time. So we'll be able to report to you all on a quicker basis of what we've done and where we're headed. The point of this slide is to show the complexity of communications during snow events, and it really starts with the mayor and CAO's office and streets and roads, and you can see everything sort of flows out from them. Of course, at the very top is weather, and that's the key to the whole thing in terms of our communications, what kind of weather we're getting. But we monitor that from several sources so that we're hopefully several hours ahead of what a snow event's going to be so we can mobilize and be ready for the event before it happens. With that, I promise to be quick and to the point and am available for any questions any of you all might have. Just in that one diagram, so where would council be in that? You are informed all of the time in terms of this. We can put you wherever you would like it to be put. Omnipresent. In this. We were talking more from an administrative standpoint. Well, it's about getting it done for the people, but, you know, everybody wants their, this is the most beautiful diagram of nuclear cold fusion I've ever seen. I mean, it's beautiful. I'm fine with it. I think everybody else is, but we do have questions. We'd love to modify that if you have a place that you'd like to have us put you. We can put you in between the mayor and streets and roads so you could be getting information from both sides that way. Just be involved as we need to be. Council Member Mazzotti. Yes, ma'am. Thank you, Commissioner Holmes. I appreciate the concise report. Let me ask you one question so I'm clear. On the route rankings, this is basically when each individual council member met with you and supplied you with specific streets they felt were necessary and ranked in a certain order, correct? Yes. And Director Albert Miller went and drove the roads that you asked him to look at, and that's based on adding those into our system. That's where we came up with the additional 109 lane miles that we had. My question is, did you keep all those in there, or did you sift through those and say, well, you know, after we drove them, we don't think it's necessary, or did you keep our recommendations in there? Cul-de-sacs were taken out of those because we just can't get to cul-de-sacs immediately, and that wasn't part of our ranking. There are five and below in cul-de-sacs. Albert may have taken some out. But as you look at your individual map, if you see areas that you have problems with, please get in touch with us. We'll meet with you again and talk about any additional changes we need to make. Okay. And I understand the cul-de-sacs. I think everybody does. I just want to know if those that we recommended to do made the cut. We tried to include as many of those as we could with the idea of how the ranking system is designed, And that's for connectivity of streets to be able to get to a main street to be able to move out of the subdivisions. All right. Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. Council Member Fred Brown. Thank you, Chair. Your presentation there, but then I have in front of me the snow and ice control plan, winter 2015-2016. Yes, sir. Is that the plan? That is the plan that would be posted on the city website, available to be picked up in our office on an individual basis for the public. Are we going to have to, will there be a resolution, or do we stamp our approval on this particular process, this plan? I was going to dovetail back and ask the committee. Okay, well, I've got a couple other questions in. But when we do the report out of our minutes from last meeting, if the council endorses it, it would endorse everything we've been talking about in my estimation. Okay. Okay. I just wanted to see what our order. On the snow plan itself, page 14, I believe, yes, it's got bridges, hills, and intersections. And I noticed in the paragraph that you're stating that these are included in the rankings. but I wasn't sure if, like the hills, are they in or dispersed between four rankings? I'm going to let Albert come up and be specific on that. My memory is he has a specific team that goes out and takes care of these, but I'm going to let Albert address that if he would. On page 14, Albert, you've got bridges also there. Here, it's right here. The question is, are these in the rankings, or is this done by your special team that goes out and does that? The majority of these are in the rankings. Yeah. And they have kind of been in this plan for quite some time. And I believe that they are all some type of – So it doesn't take anything away from the plan? And this is – No, it does not. Okay. Okay. I mean, we have trucks, obviously, in all these areas. Okay. And as far as the rankings go, or as far as the work actually, and it's going to depend on the snowfall and what we've got there, are we dividing the city into sections or sectors like we do our police department? Yes, sir. It's nine different areas. Nine sectors? We refer to them as areas, but sectors are fine. And as far as your work and anticipation, then all nine of them get processed at the same time? At the same time. Okay, great. So is that in this body anywhere where you... Yes, it should be on one of them. I didn't read ever verbatim, but anyway. I was impressed with my district map. That's great. You all did a great job, whoever did the map and the roads and everything. And I'm pleased. I had some input, and you all looked at that, and that map is great. I wonder if it might not be a good idea. Other council members might allude to this, but if we add those 12 districts to the plan itself, is that too much on logistics? You know, since we're going to have a document, which is... If that's the council's desire, we would do that. In the past, we had only included the citywide map, but if the council wishes us to do that, we should think. If we pass the plan, I mean, some of it always gets tweaked as far as that goes, but, you know, we've got a document here that we're looking at, and if the council approves it, then this is our plan, this is what we strive for, and it's very comprehensive, and I think it's going to be something that we can look at, each council member can look at, and make sure that it's ongoing, and if we need to make some changes, we can in the future. But I like this. You're asking for 12 individual maps to the 12 districts? Yeah, just attached to it because I think they can put it in the map I have. I know they can reduce it and probably put it in here. I don't know how readable it will be. I don't think you need to reprint this by any amount of means. I just think it needs to be available in electronic format per district. We have those maps available in electronic format, But we can also for the ones that we were going to hand out to the public when they come and ask for them or Put on the website. We can include those 12 districts Well, your first two sets of questions kind of went to specifics in the district So I think we need to say shape that we'll do so. Thank you, sir. That's all I had. Thanks. Thank you, sir Councilmember Hensley Thank you, sir The question I've got goes back to your communications workflow diagram and and it's maybe tangential to the big picture of what we're talking about but I'm very familiar with the National Incident Management System, and I'm certified by FEMA to be a regional incident commander. And the mayor's office should not be the center of that flow. It would be the EOC. Be what? Say it again. The EOC. And that would be the case if an emergency, a snow emergency was declared and the EOC was activated. So why wouldn't we do that all the time? I mean, train like you fight, fight like you train. That, I guess, has not been deemed to be necessary. Okay. And the mayor is the individual who has the authority to declare a snow emergency. So that's, in our mind, why he is, or the mayor is at the center of the flow chart on that. I just want to point that out. I mean, it's, you know, I don't want to create a bad habit. So, thanks. Very good, sir. Is that all? Thank you. Council Member Maloney. Thank you, Chair. I got a couple questions. First, when you all do these roads, we've got a lot of ones out there that I'm glad you do, but you've got a lot of roads that go into one that are very dangerous where cars are coming down a hill and they can't stop, and the first thing you do is go into a main thorough like a one, and you're going to cause major wrecks. and as I look throughout the city, they're not on the list to be cleaned off the hills. Did that make the priority? Because to me, the last thing I want to do is sit here and fix, clean one up, and then you've got all these side roads coming on one or two, and it ends up being a danger threat because you've got roads coming off these hills, and I guarantee you there's council members in their district, and I've been through a lot of it that have hills that come straight down and end up hitting a number one through what's already been cleaned off. You can't stop, and they just slide right out in the middle of the road and ends up being a problem. And I said, wow, we couldn't clean that hill off real quick. Most of those situations that you're talking about are actually cul-de-sacs or dead-end streets. These are not. These are about 150 homes on each one of these streets. Do you have one name of the street? Oh, I name it, and then everybody gets mad at me because it's my street. But I also have the mayor's secretary lives on that street, too, and she and I know that this is a major problem. When you go down that hill, you're going, it's the only road on Vassell's Road that goes right out that has a hill that you have to go out. as you're coming down and you're going to slide right out in the middle of Vassels Road and you've got 23,000 cars coming and it ends up being a danger threat. You know what I'm talking about now. I do. But it's like I say, it is still a dead end street, but we can look at it and they're very problematic, as the commissioner said. And I know, I'm not just saying my street. I know there's other ones. I can give you an example over off of Garden Springs where you're coming down there as an apartment complex. I could just sit there and watch the cars coming right out on the Garden Springs, which is a tube, and they go right sliding right out there up from those sides of the apartment. And it's just a major problem for that. That's all throughout the whole district. I mean, throughout the whole county. County, I mean. Yeah, and what we do is we take all LexCorp's calls that make work orders, and we respond to every call that we get. All right, well, I just, but, you know, I mean, those are my biggest concerns. The last thing I wanted was clean the road off, and, you know, you've got cars flying out in the middle, can't stop, and they're going to run right into a large crowded traffic flow. and hopefully we can, I assume council members can call you all on that to give you some of those peak folks where they're concerned about. And we do respond to those calls. And the second thing is my favorite study, the salt barn. When we're putting the second salt barn up, because this has been just so exciting. We currently are working on the RFP to go out to have it designed. We will be looking for getting the costs back for you all to include that in the upcoming budget cycle. So the design will be this fiscal year. Next year will be the construction of it. So we still looking at the same place where we had blue sky? It would be blue sky, yes, absolutely. Okay, because that's, I'm telling you, that'll solve a lot of these council members' problems, because then also we'll save the city a lot of money. So hopefully we can move that as quickly as possible. Thank you. We are hoping to. Very good, sir. Thank you. We welcome Council Member Akers. Thank you, Chair. Thank you for recognizing me. Thank you for this. I do think it's helpful, and I know that we're making progress. I know I submitted lots of streets, and I haven't even had a chance to. I've looked at it and then looked at what was not included, and so I still plan to come back and probably make some more changes to that. I did have a couple questions in downtown. West 3rd and 4th and short are all red, so rank 1. but West's second is blue. And so I just was curious if you have short and third and fourth right next to it, why second would be a different rank than the others. We may need to look at that. Okay. We can do that specifically later then. Sure. And then I noticed in Suburban Mobile Home Park off of Price Road, I asked for just like one of the through streets. I know that the side streets would be difficult, but I at least wanted one access street to be cleared. And that was removed from the list. If you would send us an email on both of those, we will certainly follow up and get back to you on that. I'll have a list. Have you ready to do that? I'll have a bigger list. That'd be great. I think Albert might want to. I was just going to. Suburban is a private development. Oh, the streets are private. All the streets are private. Okay. All right. Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. Thank you, Chair. We're welcome. Council Member Henson. Thank you, Chair. Thank you for the presentation. I'm glad we're having this discussion prior to any snow events we might have. Did you provide council members with a map, an updated map? Every council person was provided a city map. Each council person in a district was provided an individual district map on Friday. Okay. And I hadn't had a chance to look at that, but I thought from the way people are talking, we must have gotten some. But I apologize, and I will go look. I was just, I just had one small question about, like, on my list that when you and I met, and I gave you the list of streets that I felt like needed attention. And these are streets, Albert, that we always get calls about. The cul-de-sac is not listed on here, and both of the cul-de-sacs that I had on my list sat at the top of a hill, which makes it very difficult for the people that live up there. if we have the major snow events like we had last year. So if I call them in, because I'm telling you I will get complaints, and I call them in, you will go get them, correct? Yeah, that will be when, of course, it's part of our snow plan itself. We'll still have to follow it, but it will be done. And typically these are done at night? Yes. But we do respond to every request that we get. But, you know, I was just kind of thinking if the streets around this are already on, you know, if you're plowing those, you don't get the cul-de-sac. Then I get a call the next morning saying, why did they plow the street and not get the cul-de-sac? So then you have to go back. So I guess I was just, my thinking is it would be better to go ahead and get it while you're there. But. It's kind of difficult to do that. Yeah. And I know when I met with the commissioner, I suggested perhaps a smaller vehicle with a blade to do the cul-de-sacs. We do have some one-ton pickup trucks, and that's kind of what we do with them. Okay. But they're also part of our snow plan as far as the ranks one through four. Yeah. Because, you know, I know how those big snow plows, it would be very difficult. The smaller trucks are limited in what they can do. Right. Just because of the nature of the way it's set up. Okay. Thank you. I'll look at my map, and I'll let you know if I have any concerns or questions. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, ma'am. And we welcome Councilmember Lamb. Thank you, Chair, for recognizing me. On page 14 of the actual snow plan, I wanted to point out there is a hill. It's Ridgepoint Run Road, and I know that it has several segments to it, but it does let out down on Wilson Downing, and so you all were so gracious this last snow to make sure you took care of that first segment that's closest to Wilson Downing. I didn't know if you wanted to add a couple of more segments there. I realize at the end of it you can't go all the way to the end because you can't get the truck around. But there are a couple of more segments on there, and besides that, it wasn't listed on the hills here, and I just wanted to make sure. But it's Ridgepoint Run Road, and we'll send you another email on that. Thank you. We will certainly look at that. Okay, and the other thing is on page 4 of your PowerPoint, your original lane miles are 1,251, the new lane miles 1,360. So it added 109, if I did my correct? Yes, that is correct. Okay, so, but it's, on your next slide down, it was saying that you could actually service up to 300 additional lane miles. So are you allowing? So we weren't looking, by doing the contractors, it will free up some additional ability for us to get into the neighborhoods quicker because we will have more capability. So we weren't looking to add 300 lane miles. We were looking to add what needed to be added by general consensus, and then the extra capacity we have can be used to get out into the neighborhoods quicker. That's the concept. Okay. And one last question. We did submit our streets, and I know that some of those were accepted into the plan and some weren't. I was just interested in knowing if there was anything, I mean, if the street actually connects on both ends to another street as opposed to a cul-de-sac, was there any special, I mean. We were available to meet with you all to go over that at your convenience. Just let us know. We'll schedule something and come and sit down and talk with you about that if that's your desire. All right. I mean, I just want you all to know how great of a job you all did in addressing the snow removal earlier this year. And I applaud you all for that and for the response time. Every time I emailed or called, you all were there and took care of it really fast. So I really appreciate that. And let's pray we don't have to utilize those resources again this year. So, but thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. Council Member James Brown. Excuse me. Thank you, Chair. Thanks for the presentation. It was very well put together, and thanks for your responsiveness to the suggestion about streets being added or changed as far as priority. But kind of tying in to what Councilman Fred Brown was alluding to about displaying the plan divided in districts, I just wondered if it would be just as useful to have it divided into the nine sectors that you're approaching in, maybe an overlay over the entire city map. I'd hate to make it more confusing for the public, but it might give them a better overview of how Streets and Roses are attacking the snow removal. We will certainly look at a map. We did talk about the different districts. I thought there was a map to that, But if there isn't, we will include that also in the additional 12 that you asked for. Okay. Yeah, that's just a suggestion. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Any other questions, anyone? Commissioner, if I correct it, if we read this out and pass the motions, you are a duly powered act. Thank you, sir. Next on our agenda is the downtown speed limit reduction. This is an item that appeared before us a couple of months ago, and we did not get to it because of time last time. and I guess, Director, welcome. Thank you. So it has been a couple months at least, so I hope everybody can remember the presentation previously because I've only got a couple of duplicate slides that were in the last presentation. I've added some new material for this presentation. But I did try, I re-watched the presentation last time and I re-watched everyone's questions and I've tried to address most of the questions that were asked by each of you at the last meeting. One of the key issues was, are we taking a different approach to downtown streets than we are to suburban residential streets? And I think, to be quite frank, the answer to that question is yes, but I feel obligated to do that. The volumes of pedestrians downtown are orders of magnitude larger than they are in suburban residential neighborhoods. pedestrians were counted on Short Street, and within two hours, there were almost 1,000 pedestrians on that street during lunchtime hour, which is significantly greater than you'd see in any suburban neighborhood in Lexington. So just the downtown environment is completely different, and there's a significant potential for ped vehicle conflicts in the downtown area. Secondly, I didn't elaborate much on GEL Studio's work for the DDA in the last presentation, but they have done a lot of work downtown studying pedestrian flows and how people use public spaces. And so I included some of that information in this presentation. Additionally, I didn't include much data in the last presentation about pedestrian vehicle collisions, and so I've included more data in this presentation specifically about the human factors, so the driver human factors and pedestrian human factors that were part of the collision reports. And then finally, you know, it was stated multiple times that lowering the speed limit downtown is not going to solve the problem. And I completely agree with that. I couldn't agree more. But that's why we're doing multiple things. This fiscal year in traffic engineering, we have already programmed out our full $200,000 for pedestrian safety improvements. In fact, we've got a list that will be on our waiting list for next year if that line item is funded again in our budget. Secondly, we have, in the first week of December, we will be meeting with Group CJ to begin a pedestrian safety outreach campaign. The Division of Traffic Engineering has allocated $40,000 for that campaign, so we feel like we'll be able to accomplish a lot with that money. Thirdly, I've worked with Chief Barnard about enforcement, because it's not just about lowering the speed limit. The enforcement is a critical piece to that. and he explained to me a three-pronged approach that the police would use to enforce a reduced speed limit downtown. Additionally, he has 10 safety officers that will be coming on board in January, and that may be a good thing that some of those officers could undertake, and we may be able to provide some additional funding for him to do that. Just to reiterate again, urban environments are completely different from suburban environments. The Central Business District and the University of Kentucky area and Transylvania area have far greater pedestrian volumes than any neighborhood. And I feel like it's not only my goal to provide safe roadways for vehicles, but it's also to provide safe roadways for peds and bikes. And so this would be one step towards that. And then it's about a bigger vision for downtown. You know, it's not just about providing safe roadways for bikes, peds, and vehicles, but how do those decisions impact economic development in downtown? And I feel like that's something that's partially my responsibility as well. These next four slides, so I took these from GEL Studios' presentation that they made to the DDA and some other stakeholders. And it may be a little bit tough to see, but I think you'll be able to make out the pink to red lines or shading that indicates pedestrian volume flows. And so you can see that there's quite a few streets that carry more than 500 pedestrians in an hour, which is fairly significant. I mean, you know, some of the streets downtown don't even carry 500 vehicles in an hour, so to carry 500 PEDs is significant. So I'm just going to quickly flip through these. At the lunch break, you can see that there's far more PEDs than even in the morning commute, and you'll notice that even more than in the evening commute, there's more people walking around at lunchtime, and you probably all notice that as you're downtown during the day. another thing that Gell Studio pointed out is that the pedestrian volumes stay consistent throughout the evening hours and they also provided a slide that was kind of like the happy hour hour which was I believe after 8 p.m. and the pedestrian volumes downtown are still fairly high during those evening hours so it just shows that the consistent the consistent volumes of pedestrians This slide was also from Gale Studios' presentation. It compares Short Street to other urban streets. And I have not been to 3rd Avenue in Seattle, but I did a Google Street View of 3rd Avenue in Seattle. It's a beautiful street. There was lots of pedestrians on the street. There are streetcars on that street. Denver, 16th and Arapaho. I am familiar with Denver. 16th and Arapaho is a great urban street. It does carry more pedestrians than Short Street. but has great amenities, seating areas, transit, and so have you. One question that came up last time was the impact of a slower speed limit on commute times and travel times in general. And if you, I stole this slide particular from Jeff Speck, who in turn stole it from AECOM, it appears, because he has footnoted the slide with AECOM. but it shows that you know for and this is obviously hypothetical but if you've got a 20 minute 20 minute commute say and you're and the average speed limit on those streets leading into downtown is 45 miles per hour the 25 mile per hour speed limit in the downtown portion so when you get to downtown and you drive the additional quarter of a mile or half a mile that does not significantly impact your commute time and so that this is just showing that in a graphic and I thought I thought it was a great graphic and I wanted to show it to you guys as well this is one slide that I did include, re-include from my previous presentation, which is the whole reason why we think that lowering the speed limit is a good idea. The impact on stopping distance is significant. The impact on fatality risk is significant. And the impact on injuries, injury reduction is significant. And that's the primary reason for reducing the speed limit. I included this slide again as well that just illustrates the impact of just a 5-mile-per-hour speed limit reduction and the impact on stopping distance. I also included in this presentation four different slides that show ped collision data. The majority of the slides are June 2014 to June 2015 data, and then one slide was calendar year 2014 because that's all I had. This just shows the breakdown of the location of ped vehicle collisions. You can see that the majority are not at an intersection. Then this shows the lighting characteristics. You see the vast majority happen in the daylight, and I was talking with Chief Barnard about that, and he was like, well, you know, I said that was somewhat surprising. You know, I thought more of that breakdown would happen at night, but, you know, clearly and obviously there's more pedestrians walking around during the day. So it makes sense, and more vehicles driving around during the day. So it does make sense. I just thought with greater visibility, you know, you may see fewer number in that column, but you don't. I'm not sure this really tells us anything. You know, the driver age at the collision with pedestrians is fairly well distributed. So I included it because we have that data, but I'm not sure that it really tells us anything. The human factors, so basically these are the items that the police officer or whoever responds, the police that respond to the collision mark down on the collision report. You can mark as many of these as you want or as they feel, you know, are applicable. The non-detected, you'll see that that's by far the highest, and second to that is failed yield right away. So none detected would mean that the ped is presumably at fault, whether it's walking in the roadway, not in the crosswalk, walking against the signal. And then the second highest to that is failed to yield right away, meaning that the pedestrian had the right away. They were in the crosswalk walking with the signal. The none detected, although you may think, well, if we lower the speed limit, you know, the ped was at fault in all of those collisions. if we lower the speed limit, there's a better chance that they wouldn't be injured as severely in that scenario that they're walking in the street or not in the crosswalk. The human factors, the pedestrian human factors. So these were, this is what the pedestrian was doing at the time of the collision. You can see that twice as many were crossing with the pedestrian signal as were crossing against, so that meaning that the vehicle was at fault for those collisions. and you see that a good majority of them were not at an intersection, but a similar number were also in the crosswalk. So it's kind of, you know, a mixed bag across the board. And you also see, which I think is, you know, I'm making assumptions, but if you see, you know, the 33 that were walking in the roadway, you know, were they walking in the roadway because there wasn't adequate sidewalk infrastructure or were they walking in the roadway for some other reason? But I think that's something, you know, that we would have to delve greater into in the actual police reports. I know I'm running out of time. I didn't want to go through these maps. I presented this map last time. It was too tiny. Nobody could read it. And so I did provide insets, four insets, that were basically showing each one of those clipped areas on subsequent slides. I think, you know, if everybody's okay, I'll skip through these, and then we can go back to these slides at the end if you have specific questions about each one of the four inset maps. Please. So just in closing, what we really wanted to do was, and I haven't mentioned this today, but I mentioned it multiple times last time, as a result of our pedestrian safety working group, we wanted to identify changes that could be made with little cost, but we felt would have a positive impact. So with regard to changing the speed limit, there will be a cost to change the speed limit signs out. There will be a cost for police overtime, for enforcement. but we think that it can have a big impact on pedestrian safety downtown. I will say as a follow-up to my presentation last time, UK administration sent me follow-up information that said that they will be proceeding with lowering the speed limit on the streets that they control within the study area that we identified. And then just to reiterate the PR message, we're going to be working with Group CJ on crafting those pedestrian safety messages and we've worked with Chief Varner on the enforcement issues. That's it. Good run through. I think before we take Councilmember questions and comments, we have three members of the public who have asked to speak, and I was going to recognize them at this time. First is Mr. Griffin Van Meter. If you would approach for three minutes, sir, we appreciate your time today. Great. Thank you very much. I'm Griffin Van Meter. I live at 1201 North Limestone Street, And I have a petition that we circulated around the neighborhood to reduce the speed limit down to 25, and who would I submit that to? Does it say all these streets or just streets in your area? What's the verbiage? A petition to reduce the speed limit to 25 miles per hour in the downtown Lexington and all surrounding neighborhoods. Thank you. Thank you. And I have about 100 signatures on that, and I think we would be able to get a lot more to help prove this point. And I like to mention where I live. I live on North Limestone between Loudoun and New Circle. And during that stretch, it's currently listed as 35. Most cars travel above 45, and that's because there's no traffic calming devices on that mild stretch of road. and there are three active churches. Arlington Elementary is right there. Tons of children walking in that area. And I also came to speak today because I have two young children, and I'm right there on this vast street that is really hard to cross, and I'm very concerned for the safety of not just my children but all the children in the neighborhood. And so I think as a public safety recommendation, we have to implement the lower speed limit. And I would even say we should take it to 20 and implement the 20 is plenty model. One, again, because it reduces fatalities and injuries that much more. But also another added benefit of it is that at 20 miles per hour, you don't have to add additional traffic calming devices. So you can do a reduction of stop signs. You can do a reduction of bike lanes because bikes can keep up with cars. And again, because of the stopping time. And another reason I think that area is important and what Dow pointed out in her slide, too, is that from Paris Avenue all the way up to New Circle, there aren't any sidewalks. So talking about how do we create an equitable city and equitable streets, I think it's putting in policies and speed limits and infrastructure that allow for all modes of transportation, pedestrian, bike, public transportation as well. So just from a basic public safety and equity standpoint, I think it's imperative that this council adopt at least the 25 and really consider going down to 20 miles per hour. Thank you very much. Oh, sorry, one other thing. I have purchased a walkable city book for each council member, and I would love for you guys to read it as a policy kind of guideline. And Dow mentioned the planner who wrote it, Jeff Speck. So if you didn't get one of those books, I'll get you one after the meeting. Thank you very much. Thank you, sir, very much. Next is Chris Non. Welcome, sir. Thank you. I just wanted to speak on behalf of this plan and proposal. I wanted to thank Dall and her office for preparing this, and I know this is somewhat unusual to make a broad change like this as opposed to a street-by-street basis, so I wanted to thank you all for considering it. I live at 561 North Limestone. Like Griffin, I have two small children, and living on a street that has a 35-mile-an-hour speed limit is very concerning for obvious reasons. I also am an employee of the North Limestone Community Development Corporation, and as such, really try and look out for and advocate for things like this that can help benefit the neighborhood and the downtown in general. So to Dowell's point, I do think that in addition to safety, pedestrian safety, it can also, slowing the speed limit can really be an economic driver in the sense that there's not a perception that these streets are just conduits and that these places are pass-throughs but can really be at a slower speed recognized and experienced in a way that can help the neighborhood. So I want to speak in favor for those reasons. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Appreciate that. And lastly, Mr. Richard Young. Welcome, sir. Hi, everyone. I might start coughing. I have the flu, so sorry. I hope none of you get it from me. Your minimum safe distance. So I am also an employee of the North Limestone Community Development Corporation. I live at 234 Castlewood Drive, right across from Castlewood Park. And I kind of wanted to talk a little bit sort of from my personal perspective and also from our organization's perspective. We're in the middle of conducting a cultural plan right now where we're working with a lot of people in our neighborhood. We've identified about 25 communities that live in or impact our neighborhood. And we're going on walks through our neighborhood with these individuals. We've gone on a walk with Vice Mayor Kay and Council Member Brown as well. But the biggest thing that I'm seeing in the results, we've gone on about a little over 100 walks now, or 100 people have gone on these walks with us at this point. The number one thing that we're hearing, looking at public space, public art, and neighborhood assets, is people are scared to walk down the street. It's too dangerous. I hear that from kids that are five years old, and I hear that from people that are in their 60s and 70s, that the traffic is so loud and it feels so dangerous. And in a neighborhood, and I would really like to echo Griffin's point, where we sort of have an inequitable investment in sidewalk infrastructure, it's incredibly dangerous to have 35 mile per hour speed limits on any of these roads. And even to sort of echo that point, we have a partner program called North Limestone Music Works that brings about 40 kids from Arlington Elementary for daily group orchestral instruction. and at one point the program was located three blocks south of Arlington Elementary and several of the parents of students in that program pulled their kids out of the program. This is a program that gives them two and a half hours of instruction after school every day of the week. They pulled them out because they were too afraid for their children to walk three blocks down North Limestone Street and they're afraid because of cars. and it is very different. It's a very different experience being in suburban neighborhoods, but I walk around Castlewood Park every morning, and Bryan Avenue that goes along the western side of Castlewood Park is 35 as well, and a lot of kids that go to Arlington Elementary, that's one of the highest percentage walk-up schools in the city, and a lot of students that go there walk from my neighborhood, walk from Castlewood Park over, and there is only one crosswalk and no stop signs for the entire length of the park. And there's only one stop sign on that 1.2-mile road, and it's 35. And there's only one crosswalk to cross across the park. And anyone that's walked that strip knows you take your life into your hands walking across that. And I don't say that with any sort of joking manner. It is very dangerous. So I would implore you all to please lower the speed limit to 25. Thanks. Thank you, sir. Gentlemen, thank you for your time and your testimony. We have a couple of council members signed up. First is Council Member Maloney. Thank you, Dale. I got a question here. It's on page 38. We're looking at Waller Avenue. I don't have the full packet. What's the slide? It's Waller Avenue. the 25-mile speed limit on Waller and Cooper. I got 38 on my package. Or page 3, whatever. I believe they have it up. Maybe it's 3. The question I have is, when you get all the way to Tate's Creek Road, where did the speed limit go back up on Cooper? What does it say? Does it say 25 all the way through that neighborhood, or does it say 25 just from Waller to? What's being proposed is from Cooper from Nicholasville Road to Tate's Creek. It may be 25 on the other side. I'm not sure. I'm just curious what it is across Tate's Creek. The reason why I bring this up is I want consistency. I don't, I mean, if it's 35 miles an hour on the other side of Cooper, I see that this road is very similar to the other side of 35 miles an hour of Cooper. That's the only question I have that I have on this whole chart is that road there. I understand Maxwell and all the activity going on there. I think 25 miles should have been done. I thought it was going to be done when we did this 15 years ago when we did residential streets, which I don't understand why we had to wait this long with this activity going on downtown to lower the speed limit when it should have been done. That should have been the first thing we'd done 15 years ago. But I'm glad we're finally getting around to it. But I just can't see where the difference, what makes it so much. I understand UK has a lot of activity between Nicklesfield Road and to, I guess, KET right there. But once you get past that, it becomes similar. The 35 goes all the way to, I assume, all the way to Chennaway. No, yeah, I understand. There is a mid-block pedestrian crossing on Cooper that just has flashing beacons. And so that would be one concern, the volume of pedestrians that are crossing on that segment of Cooper. but I could look into that. I mean, I'm just trying to figure out. I didn't know. Out of all the roads, that was the only questionable road that I had, was Waller Avenue, if we're going to be, especially when we're going in the residential area and we're still leaving at 35. And I just, I don't know. I guess that the council member said that. I guess that'd be something that the council member has to look at. But this should have been done a long time ago. And I commend you all for what your report is, and especially when you go down Market Street and you go 35 miles an hour is just ridiculous. Go down Mill Street 35, go down Limestone when you've got all those schools, you've got improvements down there on Loudoun. I think this is going to be a great thing to happen. I wish we'd have done this 15 years ago, but I'm just hoping we can continue on this and get this done ASAP. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Council Member Mazzotti. Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Griffin and company, for coming down and talking about walkable cities. It's real important. But not only do we have walkable cities, we need to have walkable suburbs. And I'm a walker, and I can tell you that there are several streets that are still out in the suburbs that aren't 25. And recently, at a neighborhood meeting I had last fall, I was petitioned to have one of the major streets there, because there was a clubhouse, a lot of children in the neighborhood, to have that reduced to 25, and they were turned down. So I'm trying to understand the equity here. there's no way you can say that children downtown, and I'm not trying to be glib about this, but they're as important as the children in the suburbs. And that's where I have a problem. I think this is a great idea. I think you have to have this. But I think there needs to be as much thought given to those people who have issues in the suburbs who request that and say, look, we've got kids, we know this is an issue, clubhouses, et cetera, et cetera. and they get turned down. So how do we rectify that? I think, you know, I mean, we are coming back in January to present on the neighborhood traffic management guidelines, and maybe we can address it during that meeting and come up with a way to better address pedestrian safety in neighborhoods. I will say that all residential local streets are already 25 by ordinance, and so the streets that you would be talking about would be collector streets. And they are, and that request was specifically a collector street. But again, if I'm living in a neighborhood, I know that neighborhood better than anybody else. And I'm asked by an association to look at this. And in fact, one of the people that asked was a state trooper. And they get turned down because of this. It's very hard for me to say, well, you guys can't get it even though you feel it's applicable and it doesn't happen. So I think it's really important that we look at the neighborhood streets as well, especially when people petition for this and it doesn't happen. And I think that's very, very difficult for me or anyone to defend the position that, you know what, your street has to stay 35 for some reason, even though there is a concern of safety. Just as these gentlemen brought that up, taking their kids across the street is a concern for safety. It is for others as well. Right. So we'll look into that. I mean, maybe we can look at a pedestrian volume threshold or some way to include the other modes and not just travel speeds. Yeah, I think we really need to do because I think, again, it's equity. And that's what it's all about. Thank you so much. Thank you, ma'am. Council Member James Brown. Thank you, Chair. I would like to thank Griffin, Richard, and Chris, who are residents in the 1st District, for coming down and sharing their concerns about the speed reduction plan. And also, Ms. Mallory. I received an email from her as well as other constituents in the district just this past week about their support in reducing the speed limit. And then I'd also like to thank Val for the additional information to the presentation. It looks the same, but it looks like it's on steroids a little bit this time. I think part of, you know, while I was walking the neighborhoods and talking to neighbors, the very first thing out of mostly everybody's mouth when I knocked on the door and introduced myself was speed limit. traffic and just their concerns about their children themselves and their neighbors walking down the street. So I think, you know, there's a real strong public safety factor as far as traffic concerns in not just the first district, but the city. And I think Council Member Massadi makes a very good point. You know, in some of those conversations I was talking about where they were looking at the speed reduction area, but some of the neighborhoods in the suburban part of the district, they had the same concerns. They showed support in hoping it passed and maybe shed some light or start some conversations about doing something in those areas as well. So I think this would be a step in that direction. And I also think it could help spark or be a part of a culture shift, just get people wrapping their minds around activities that would help to increase traffic flow for businesses in the community, more activities as far as health and fitness, and just being out in the community and becoming a community, getting to know your neighbors and making the neighborhoods more walkable and bike-friendly. And then, you know, there's a lot of sidewalk infrastructure concerns in the 1st District. And I know it's all around the city. It's areas where we need to improve sidewalk conditions. And I think this speed reduction plan can kind of help with that as far as, you know, if you slow down traffic, then, you know, when you get to those areas where there is no sidewalks, then, you know, that would lessen or reduce the risk for fatalities or accidents or incidents where it could be more extreme if traffic was reduced. So I would ask that committee members consider moving this plan along to the next step so we can see what we can do to help improve conditions in these neighborhoods. And then I also have a question. As far as the state roads that are in this zone, what are the steps with those? Will we just encourage them to reduce the speed limit as well? Have you already had conversations with them about the plan? I have. so they post speed limits based on 85th percentile speed and based on that they would not support lowering the speed limit on the state routes I talked to Chief Barnard about that and we are going to try to come up with a plan where potentially we can make that request again so okay thank you thank you chair thank you sir council member Gibbs Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Donald. I think this is a great plan. Thank you to our speakers and the public. I'd like to reiterate what Griffin said about the meter walkable, what Griffin Van Meter said about the book Walkable City. I have read it, and I had a chance to see Jeff Speck speak in Frankfurt about a year ago, and I think it'd be worthwhile for everybody to read. This plan to make our streets more walkable, bikeable, safer. I think it's just wonderful. One of the things I've spoken here many times before that I'm a serious pedestrian, but I also want to address the bike issues. If you've been looking around, we've had several new bike shops open. Biking is becoming much more popular on young people. Two of those bikers you see out there frequently are my daughters, Delia and Delaney, who are both in their 20s, and their primary means of transportation is bikes. I'm really proud of Delia and Delaney and people like them. They're using their bodies to get some exercise. They're doing the ecologically right thing to do. But I am concerned about them with with the current speed limits So I'd like to make a motion to move this out of committee to the consideration of the full council so moved We have a motion councilman we have a second councilmember James Brown, thank you. We're in discussion of the motion. Are there any comments or questions? All right, I'm seeing none Okay, seeing Councilmember Hensley. I was going to yield to my fellow councilwoman. I shared the same comments that Councilwoman Masotti has. I mean, to have an overall plan, I mean, it does seem inequitable. I mean, I've heard that word a lot today. So I would make a motion to amend it to move it to full council with the whole plan for both the suburbs and the city. to be included. What would that look like? Because they'd have to have the plan to present it to full council. All right, then I'm listening for a second. I'll second. Now we're in discussion. And we're going to have to discuss it, I would think. Council Member Brown. Fred Brown. Thank you, Chair. While I know where you're coming from on that, I think we need to probably get that involved in quite a bit more discussion. I think the downtown area that we're looking at, they've already vetted a lot of things. They've already done things there, and I don't see Coalmingland, the two things. I think they're different, and I would rather have some input from my district in the future. the council members that are in the district here in downtown obviously have done their job and have looked at it and they're supportive of it. So I guess my contention, I'm not going to vote for the amendment because I don't think it should be commingled. I think that's fine if you put that in committee as a separate issue. I would be supportive of that. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Council Member Mazzotti. Thank you, Chair. I know that's a big task because there's probably some collector streets that probably need to remain collector. That's your job, not mine. But I do feel very strongly about what some of my colleagues have said in the equity. So how do we treat that? I mean, I just don't want them to be left out of the picture, so to speak. My proposal would be, and I'll work with Roger, and Roger's here today, to include bike and ped considerations in the NTMP manual. And when we come back in January and present the NTMP manual, that we will provide for multimodal considerations with traffic calming and not just volumes. Because I think what we're all agreeing to hear is we all understand that, you know, not only for health reasons, not only for safety reasons, those are two main issues that need to be, you know, county and citywide. We've got a lot of people who, you know, bike from my end of town to UK every day, and we're trying to encourage that. so if again i want to try to make sure that this is fair across the board so they get the shot to be 20 is plenty instead of you know okay you're at 35 because you live off of x amount of street and you don't have um maybe a school there or a library whatever and and i i just don't want to rush this so i want to make sure again that this is equitable across the city but again i understand this is important um so i don't want to wait for another study to come up in january then it takes another six months, and then we're into summer, and kids are out of school, and we've got to deal with this. So maybe we need to leave this in committee to talk about this further. Do you feel that you need to move on this quickly? Well, I think, I mean, I agree with Council Member Brown's comments that I think the issue that you've brought up is a separate issue from the downtown area. And I would be willing to work with you and any other council members that want to have input in the NTMP manual and changes to that, but I would recommend that that's presented as a separate topic. What's the time frame on something like that? We are already scheduled to come back in January to present, which has been since June, to follow up on the NTMP changes, which, if you remember, there was some controversy over the cost sharing of neighborhood traffic calming devices and things like that. So we've already got changes to bring back to committee in January, so I would recommend that we bring those pedestrian changes back at the same time. One last question. In your opinion, as far as your traffic expertise, if we reduce the streets, does it reduce, as they had said, the traffic calming devices? I mean, is that true? What do you mean reduce it? Do you need less of them? I mean, no, like we've got speed bumps or speed humps and that kind of thing. Does it reduce that by reducing that speed? The need for them? Yes. Yes, I would say that it does. I mean, if the speed limit is enforced. I mean, people can still go 35 and a 25. But, yeah, I would say it reduces the need for traffic calming devices if the speed limit was enforced. So I guess my thought is, wouldn't that make sense then to have that everywhere instead of just in one particular area? And I get it because there's more pedestrians downtown, but there's also that concern out in the burbs as well. I understand. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. Council Member James Brown. Thank you, Chair. I would just like to—I appreciate Council Member Hensley's suggestion and amendment, But I'd also agree with Council Member Fred Brown about the issues, what it looks like in downtown and suburban neighborhoods being different and looking different. And I think since the work has been done and the research has been presented about the downtown neighborhoods, I would like to move forward with that. And I would support a motion to put it in committee looking at suburban neighborhoods and what that looks like in different areas around the city. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Council Member Maloney. I just want to give a little bit of a history, and I don't mean it to sound like I'm trying to go back, but when we pushed for this back in 1989 or, I think, Councilman Farmer, I think, Mazzotti was there, we had a policy where it was written for the neighborhoods, and I thought it was also going to be for downtown. I was kind of shocked that it was not for downtown. I thought it was going to be for all residential areas that we make them 25 miles an hour, The only ones that would be 35 are the ones that would go through the neighborhoods. And we have petitions over the years for those that went through the neighborhoods were able to get them down to 25 miles an hour. We did that over in Hartland. We did it over in a couple of other places. I remember that. I just don't want to muddy the water. I just feel that this thing should have been done. 25 downtowns should be done. And I think we have a policy going right now, which you helped me with, to put the transportation thing in the council for table for a little while. What is that? Yeah, the Neighborhood Traffic Management Manual. Which I think is going to be able to solve a lot of this problem that we're talking about here. I think it's going to be a big huge, because you were able to define on some of those streets, if we were going to change speed limits or something like that, we could do that. But to me, I feel this is a bigger crisis than anything. For all what's going on downtown, for what's going on, I don't want to delay this project. I just want to see the 25-mile speed limits go up everywhere downtown. So I will not support this motion because I feel like you've got the handle of this. You know what's going on. That's why we have you in this position. And that's why you put that traffic engineering thing together so we can pass that. So hopefully we'll bring that back soon so we can get that passed. and I think it will clear up a lot of these problems that we have. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Vice Mayor Kay. Thank you, Chair. I'm just going to reiterate what some of the other folks have said. This is, I think, the beginning of an understanding of how important walkability is. Downtown is, for a variety of reasons, in terms of the amount of pedestrians, in terms of the amount of traffic flow, it is a special, deserves special consideration. So I will not be in favor of the amendment because I don't want to hold up the implementation of the recommendation to change the speed limits downtown. But I'm very much in favor of looking at the suburban areas, looking at the collective streets. And as the other individual district council members have said, they understand on a fine-grained basis what streets really need to be changed, if any. And partly what I perceive is that we need a change. Well, I'm going to back up from that. That we are undergoing a change in attitude about the balance between automobiles and pedestrians. And that this government needs to be more amenable to proposals that come from the neighborhoods that favor pedestrians. We're moving in the right direction. I think we do need a plan. I'll be all in favor of it. So I will be against the amendment and I will favor the original motion. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, sir. And Councilmember Hensley. I think in the discussion that we've had, I think we feel like we're satisfied that there's a plan coming in January. So I'll withdraw the motion to amend. Thanks. Will the seconder withdraw? Yes. Okay. We have withdrawn that. May I ask you a question? In looking at, thank you for this, this is great for me. So when you laid this out as a downtown plan, what motivated the addition of things from 5th Street North and the addition of things from Euclid South, which seems further, both, from downtown? Right. We started off with a much more compact area. Right. And then when we started vetting it as a group, you know, we looked, we said, well, why wouldn't we include campus area? You know, there's just as many pedestrians in the campus area as there are in the downtown, you know, compact core. And so basically we just talked through the different streets and the characteristics of the different streets and I guess somewhat arbitrarily made the boundaries, but using judgment. Well, we appreciate you using judgment. Mr. Young made reference to Bryan Avenue. And the way this is drawn right now, this only takes into account the very first block of Bryan. up to Loudon. And I think his commentary was really more about Brian from there out to New Circle. I guess that would go back to this other potential policy thing that we're talking about beyond what this legislation would provide for. Would that be along the way? All right. Did you come back on? I did. Yes, no. Yes? Council Member Mazzotti. Thank you. Del, just for clarification, should we provide you specific streets that have been requested in our districts to have speed reductions done to you prior to the January meeting? Excuse me, would that be helpful? I guess that's a good question. You know, the way that I would approach it, and maybe we should talk about this not as a form in this committee meeting, but that we make some modifications to that manual that the speed limit is not just based on traffic volume and speeds, but that there's other criteria that go into it. So I would recommend making a general change to the manual that could apply to any neighborhood streets, as opposed to each council member giving me specific streets and us making a motion to reduce those to 25. Okay, so great idea. So if I understand that, so if there was a street that was turned down because there was some criteria in that manual, now there's going to be new criteria, so they would reapply and then say, okay, this is the reason why we're reapplying, because I've had a couple that have been turned down. Right, and then those standards would live on past this council, you know, and, you know, turnover in the traffic engineering division conceivably. Okay, and you'll have that for us ready in January then, you're saying? Okay, sounds good. Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. Vice Mayor Kay. Thank you, Chair. Dow, this is a question you may not want to answer, but the change that I perceive at the local level in our government is in the right direction. I do not perceive a similar change at the state level. What, if anything, can we do to encourage the state to at least review their policies and procedures so that the concerns that we have would be, I guess, backed up by people at the state level? So we've got all these state roads that they don't want to change. Right. So we're going to have a, especially downtown, we're going to have a patchwork. And my guess is that some of the collective streets in the suburbs might also be. Are there any state roads out there? I doubt it. Yeah, probably not. So we have control over those. But downtown is a real problem. So what would you recommend? When I talk to Chief Barnard, and I don't know if he wants to come up and speak to that or not. I'm kind of throwing him under the bus right now. But we've got to come up with a way to convince the cabinet that we think this is right for downtown. I've got people that work in traffic engineering constantly sending me information like maybe this will help the cabinet change their mind. And one of those things was sent to me today saying that FHWA has on their website one of the biggest misconceptions is that the only way to set speed limits is with the 85th percentile speed, which is the way that the cabinet sets speed limits. So there's got to be, you know, there's a culture shift in the United States with regard to ped and bike and vehicle accommodations on streets. There's got to be a culture shift at the cabinet. You know, I think that's a very difficult thing. I don't know how that's going to happen, and I think it's going to take time. Do you think it might be useful for this council to pass a resolution if it were properly crafted by you folks to send to the state, to the governor, to the legislature, to the transportation, whoever, and basically say these are the kinds of concerns we have. The state has not been as responsive as we'd like. I think that would be helpful. And engage our congressional delegation, whatever. Would that be helpful? I think that would be helpful. Do you want to speak to this one more? Just for a few moments, one, it's really neat to sit in the back and listen to this culture shift that we're having when roadways were really designed to move people from one point to another. And now it's difficult, I think, for a state organization sometimes to understand what a city needs when it has such a mass population like ours and how we're shifting. Five years ago, we really didn't have the conversation, even though we talked about it, because our downtown was not as sustainable and viable as it is now with all the activity that it has. And when you're looking at the statistics Dow shows, compared to other larger cities with the volume of traffic, foot traffic, pedestrian traffic, that shows that we're evolving as a city. I think it's important for us, Louisville has that system in place, to study how Louisville had that, because their state roads, they drop down for us in law enforcement. It's a public safety issue. The slide that I think stands out more than anything is the percentage of fatalities when you go up from 25 up to 35 and that gap. The amount of energy that's transferred from a vehicle to a pedestrian from 25 to 35 is tremendous. And then the number of pedestrians we have walking right now. I think it's important to look at what Louisville has done and consistency, and that's what I'm hearing from you all. I'm for that because in enforcement area, it's hard to say, well, I didn't understand it was a collector street. When we're saying 25 consistently through Fayette County is really what we're looking for in a densely populated area. So I wouldn't bite off too much of the apple right now. I agree with Dow if we can take care of the downtown portion. And it's a huge educational part of it, saying we're evolving as a city, we're growing. and then help educating the state that we look at roadways much different than just a means to get to and from. There are lifestyle issues. There's biking issues, pedestrian issues, and we see them more encompassing than when they were originally generated to move traffic from one point to the other. And we're looking at that differently. So maybe if they can help be educated on that, I think would help us. But when you look at Vine Street, when you look at Vine Street and you try to cross four lanes and get across that at any time and any point in the afternoon, and most people will do what the speed limit is. And we know that through studies. But those aren't the people we're trying to affect. It's the people that are doing 40 to 55 on Vine Street at any point in time. because that's straightaway that we're really trying to say and educate, downtown has too many pedestrians and we can't have that action. So I agree. We talk to the state. We try to emphasize the importance of it. We look at what Louisville has done because they did it successfully and not recreate the wheel and see if we can piggyback on that. Okay. Thank you. I'd like, after we take this, I'd like to come back to the question of what we can do with the state. So I'll yield. Thank you. Eventually on Vine Street, we'll have no wake speed. You have to think about that. Council Member James Brown. Thank you, Chair. Just for clarification, at the last committee meeting where we talked about this issue, I'd ask to include Limestone and Bryan Avenue from Loudon to New Circle. So it might not be reflective on the map, but it is in the reduction study. I did not change the boundary over what was proposed originally. I think you had made a motion to add those streets. And I guess if you would be willing to accept that those streets be addressed with the NTMP proposed changes, that it may be an easier way to move this forward as opposed to just attaching more streets on to the boundary. Okay. Was there a challenge or were those streets classified as something different or were you just trying to make the boundary consistent? I just simply did. I didn't change the boundary from last time. Okay. Yeah, I think to move this forward and then maybe come back and look at those two streets, I think that's a concession that I can make. I'm not disagreeing. So when we had that discussion, you made a motion at the time, didn't you, sir? What was that motion? I do not recall it. That motion was to include those two streets from Loudon to New Circle Road. And the council did, I mean, that should be in our minutes then. Yeah. That we approved today. It did pass. I don't know, from two months ago. And I would just say to you, though, the way that the discussion and the policy has evolved, we might want to treat it differently now. I don't know. Although the council did act on it, I agree. But since this didn't get reported out at that time because we didn't take action on it, I guess it would get reported out at the point in time where if this motion is successful, it would come forward then. So I think we have some time to sort it out. Okay. All right, sir. Is that good? Okay. So you're thinking when it comes out to the full council? Is it in these? It is in this set of minutes here. So we can review it ourselves between now and work session. Okay. That's all right. Is that good? Yes, sir. I'm fine with that. Thank you. All right. Thank you. All right. Anyone else on the motion to move the reduction of downtown speed limits forward to the full council? Call the question. The question's been called. All those in favor of calling the question. Signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, like signing. and we'll move to voting. If you would throw us a screen up there, we will vote on this action. Thank you. All right. I see lots of green here. Motion carries. Thank you. Vice Mayor, do you want to make a comment now before we move forward, please? If I may, yes. If it pleases the committee, I would like to suggest that we'll request, before she leaves the room, that... Sorry, I had a three o'clock meeting. The Dow, working with whoever you need to work with, prepare a resolution for this committee to consider next month. Sure. Okay. Do you meet next month? Whenever. Okay. Whatever the next meeting. It may not be. Yeah, I don't think we do. Anyway, for the next meeting of this committee, a resolution that we would consider to send to the Department of Transportation, Governor, whomever, that would clarify our position and our hopes that we would get a... I don't want to start giving you language, but basically a better response than we get now when we ask for them to make decisions that are consistent with the decisions that we're making about the management of our streets. Okay. Okay. We'll do. Thanks. I think we're in good shape on that. We'll look forward to that. Thank you very much. Next on our agenda is maintenance of bike trails and sidewalks. Councilman Maloney, you had placed this in committee. Do you want to make any plenary comments before? Yeah, I just want to thank the administration and parks and recs and streets and roads for their hard work to putting this together. As you all know, this has been a big issue for me. When we start building roads or bike trails, we need to maintain them, and we have not had any money to maintain them. and there is a bike trail over, what's the name of that bike, Squires Road, that we put in about back in the 90s, I believe, and it has not been maintained and it's in bad shape. So what I like to do, and I'll let them explain, is how they try to make, in our general funds every year, that we set aside $150,000 so we can make sure as these roads get older, we have the money to maintain them. So I appreciate you helping out, Bob. I'd like you to go ahead and do your presentation. Thank you, sir. Mr. Allen, welcome. Thank you, council members. This presentation was put together through the administration, the CAO's office, the commissioner, streets and roads, engineering, and parks and rec, because it touches on all of us. I'm going to go through a little bit about our trails, our proposed maintenance program, and where we go from here if you so choose to start with the program. This map shows the existing trails today. As you can see, there are a couple different types, and they're scattered throughout the county. We have just under 45 miles of trails. About half of those are included inside a park. and as Council Member Maloney pointed out, we've had some constructed prior to 2003, and then as interest and funds have grown, we have certainly constructed almost half of our trail system within the last couple years, but to date we have just done construction and no maintenance. And as you can see, recently we've brought several sections or new trails are going to be coming online in the future. A lot of these are very big components of the existing trail system, their extensions. the program that we're proposing is to repair three to five miles of trails per year it's going to cost approximately fifty thousand dollars per mile it depends on of course the trail width and the type of repair needed one thing to point out a trail is a pedestrian trail is not constructed to the standard of a roadway, so the cost is actually less per mile for a road. We propose a modest budget of $150,000 to start. The trails will be assessed by the bike and pedestrian coordinator. He would make his assessment. Streets and roads would then get together with the stakeholders and make recommendations. Certainly, we would listen to parks as far as their priority. for the trails within the system. And much like our paving program, we would administer the contract and provide inspection and oversight. And, of course, we would work with all parties to establish procedures and a manual maintenance options, much like we discussed with the paving plan. And then lastly, during links, I think we will be asking for additional staff to help not only with this, but in the ongoing larger picture of our increased paving budget. We're stretched pretty thin as far as our staff capacity for oversight and inspection. And that was brief, timely. as we've talked a lot about pedestrian facilities today. I'd be happy to answer any questions. The directors are here also. Thank you for that. First up, Councilman Mazzotti. Thank you. Thank you, Rob, for your information today. So I'm clear. This is just about the existing trails we have that are requiring maintenance. Correct. Okay. I don't know if you're the one to answer this, or maybe this would be more in Keith Lovins' department, but I last month asked for a list of trails that were on the books that needed to be completed and were in the process because I know we're spending a lot of money on trails. Again, I'll get back to what I've said on the last commentary about equity. There's a lot of trails and money being funneled for downtown for our main branch here, but I've got 21 pages of trails here from each district that are still on the books. So I don't know, again, if you're the one that can answer this question or not, what do we do about these 21 other pages of trails that are on the books? I don't know. Jonathan will come up here. Jonathan. So these are the grant-funded trails. So I would assume that some of the sections that you're talking about, I'm certainly happy to talk to you about those 21 pages. I haven't necessarily seen them or talked to Keith about this necessarily. But I would assume those are like neighborhood trails or maybe sections of trails that would connect existing trails and parks with other. A lot of them are primary trails. Right. They come down to. So they're not just small trails. They are definitely primary trails that have been on the books. You know, we had gone through a master planning process at one point, and I think we're probably due to do that again to identify all those components. But, you know, that would be a little outside the scope of this presentation, but I'm certainly happy to talk to you about that. Okay. So, Mr. Chair, I guess I'd like to make a motion that we put in committee an overview of the entire master plan for all the trails that are proposed for the city. So moved. Motion by Council Member Mazzotti, a second by Council Member Fred Brown. I guess we're in discussion. So that would be an overlay over the top of what we're having a discussion about today, then? Pretty much an overview because I think, as I said, there's a lot of trails out there that are in limbo. And I think we need to have an update where they are, why they haven't gone forward, whether it's money or they're running into an issue with easements, or I know some have to do with the railroad. So I'd like to get some feedback on where we are citywide. So if I may, do you see that as something that runs along separate from the item of business we're working on or concurrent with it? I say concurrent. Okay. All right. Thank you. So we're in discussion of Council Member's motion to have, I guess, an entire inventory presentation rather than just one on maintenance. Would that be correct? Yes. All right. So we're in discussion on that motion. Vice Mayor, do you want to speak to that? Council Member Fred Brown, do you want to speak to that? Yes. Go ahead, please, sir. Thank you, Chair. I won't have to speak to the presentation. if I think this is something that is going to be more comprehensible that we need to. Yeah, I'm glad you put that map up. If we put this in committee, then maybe we can get the information back as far as where the trails and what our future is out there 10 to 15 years on connecting a lot of these trails, because I think that's supposed to be in the master plan where we do a lot of connection. And I know one of the, and it's not on there in blue, I think, is where your trails are, but there's one trail that we're, the Gainesway Trail, it's not on there yet, but it's in process and it is funded already by grant. So I think grant, the type of funding that we need to look at in this plan, not only funding for new trails, but I think there might be some, we don't know, there might be some grant monies out there for existing maintenance. So I think we need to really put this, the whole project kind of in there, not only the maintenance that we're talking about today, but the fact of what we're going to do. And let's have a future look at this, a good plan as to what direction we're going in and try to connect some of these as quick as we can. because we you look at that map and it's really fragmentated and you know other than the northern part up there that you look at the map and we know all know what that is that's a legacy trail and then it's going to come into commons and the area and down to main street but that one you can see what the pattern is and what's going on but when you look at all these other trails it's pretty fragmented and i think a plan like this is we need to look at it what can we connect the quickest and would be the most cost-effective. Thank you. Let me back up just for a second, because technically speaking, this issue that's before us has been placed in a committee by the entire council. And I've recognized this motion in a second, although I think within the confines of inside the committee itself, we may not be able to place that at this time. We might need the entire council to do that, because we're now debating, in essence, what is an inventory of the trails when really our item of discussion was about maintenance for the current trails. So I'm kind of in a personal limbo here because I've recognized this and there's been a second to it, and the whole council's not involved in the conversation of changing either this agenda item or placing that item on the agenda. I think you're right, process. I think we need to put it in work session to put it in committee and work session. So would you all be okay to withdraw at this time? Yeah, it's fine with me. Okay. Thank you both. Excellent discussion point, which showed up in our previous item also. All right. So now I think we're back to our original conversation point. I don't think we have a motion on the floor. And we're to Vice Mayor Kay. Thank you, Chair. I had a very specific question about funding. On the existing trails and the mileage, I get 44.3 miles. and the proposal is to provide funds to maintain somewhere between three and five miles per year. Yes, sir. So my question is this. Is that enough funding to keep the trails, all of them, in good shape? We could certainly use more. We thought that was a good, modest step. I don't want to call it a pilot program, but to date we have done nothing. And as Council Member Maloney pointed out, old Squires Road is one of our first trails, and that was interdicted in the early 90s, and it has had zero maintenance since it was created. Well, I've kind of been trying to make this point in a very general way, but I think specifically applied to trails, this council, I think, has an obligation to maintain what we have. And so I would like to see a proposal come forward that is not modest, that basically says, here's what it would take to take our trails and keep them up and be effectively and efficiently maintained for the foreseeable future, whatever that number might be, and let council make a decision about whether we have the funds to do that or not. So, you know, part of the calculation of how much you would maintain in a year also depends on how much you're building in a year. So this discussion of how many more trails come online. So at the pace that we were building, obviously, at a faster pace in the early 2000s, mainly driven by the fact that there was more grant funding available at that time. But if we were to pick up the pace and build more trails, we certainly would need more funding because we would want to get to a point where we have a program that is maintaining enough trails each year that as those trails reach the end of their life, they are coming into their time where they're due for maintenance. And so I think we can do a little more analysis on that as long as we can come up with some assumptions of how many miles of trails we're actually going to bring online new in a year. Well, as I said, I'd like to see that analysis, and I'd like to see what a real dollar figure for doing it right. and we may or may not agree as a council to allocate those funds but I think well I've said this again I'll say it again it's our I think it's our obligation to maintain what we have including the trails that we have so thank you thank you chair and to be clear about this presentation and funding we weren't we didn't come at this with a request for funding currently I think from talking with councilmember Maloney our thought was to bring this forward as it was had been placed in the committee as a discussion item for next year's budget with the administration and the council. So are you in a position to follow up on his request? Yes, sir. So that it could be considered in that order? Certainly. Thank you, sir. Councilman Maloney. Thank you. I brought this to y'all's attention and we had this study and I want to thank we found out it's about $300,000 that needs to put the bike trails up to par right now. My intent was after we got it up, we'd take the $150,000 and stay ahead of the curve so we can maintain these bikes as they get older over the years. But as we know, government, how it works, we had us, as we have the EPA problem, we couldn't come up with $600 million immediately, so we have to work it over the years. So I came up with the proposal that we take $150,000 and start next year and just continue on because this bike is very important to this community. And the last thing we want to do is to start to let them deteriorate after all the money the governor's put into this. And I'd like to see this to go on for years and years and years. So I'd like to make a motion that we go ahead and prove the $150,000 trail maintenance plan to be put in the budget for next year. So move. We have a motion. and we have a slow second. Thank you. We're in discussion. I'm going to stick with the original list and come to Councilmember Akers. Thank you, Chair. I had a question, I guess maybe for Rob or Jonathan. What is the lifespan of the trails? I'm sure that it's different on, you know, legacy versus smaller trails. As you can see, they were constructed at different times, so they were to different standards. There's asphalt, there's concrete, there's railroad crossings. It just varies. But a ballpark, like 10 years? Because they don't get nearly the traffic a road does. Right, it doesn't get the traffic, I'd say, in the realm of 10 to 15 years. And, of course, with our temperature extremes, it could be lower for some of the concrete pieces. And as we said, Squires Road was actually constructed as a county road and has had no maintenance, no rejuvenation, maybe some potholing along the way. But it's time to look at that. I mean, that's really used by the school kids and people in the park in that area, too. And so this proposal of $150,000, do you think it's appropriate? $150,000, I think, is an appropriate amount. One thing to keep in mind on the maintenance of trails is to, while they may not deteriorate as fast, what is a hazard to a car is very different than what is a hazard to a cyclist or a pedestrian. So we would want to maintain them to a different level than we would the road. The lifespan, I think, you know, Rob's right, 15 years is probably a pretty good amount to assume. So as we figure out how many trails we have to maintain, how many miles, that will certainly impact the amount of money annually. But I think $150,000 would go a long way towards starting to address our oldest trails first. Obviously, those that were built from 2010 on are probably in near new shape. Those built prior to 2003, like the ones that have been mentioned, are probably the ones that need the most maintenance right now. And so we haven't really done that full assessment yet, which is the first piece. And the bike and pedestrian coordinator is going to do that. We're going to develop a manual that keeps that a standardized process, and that's going to be done on an annual basis. so we can always have good information about what hazards do exist on our trails, what needs to be maintained, and all the options we have to maintain them. And that's my concern. Looking at this chart, 21.6 miles were built before 2003. So given $50,000 a mile, and I know you probably don't have the capacity to do all 21 in a year, but is three enough? I guess that was sort of my question. Is three miles enough out of 21? You know, we may be able to stretch that budget a little further mileage-wise on some of the trails. A lot of the ones that were built prior to 2003 are those that are internal to parks. And those are different. I know we usually think of trails as a shared-use path, like a legacy trail, town branch, the large ones that are like 12 feet wide can support lots of activity. Some of the park trails are much narrower. They're really walking trails. They still require maintenance. So the maintenance there, we can probably go a little bit further mileage-wise. But, you know, we'll work with streets and roads certainly to figure out who is best able to do that maintenance. It probably won't be the same contractors that do our street maintenance. So it'll be a little bit lower intensity. So I think we can actually stretch the mileage number probably a little bit. But I think $150,000 is a good figure to start with. Thank you. I just think, I mean, I'm not opposed to this, but it just seems like it might make more sense that we first do that analysis and assessment of all of the trails and where and what they're, you know, what shape that they're in right now before we, you know, to pick a number arbitrarily. But I'm, you know, I'm not a part of it. I can't vote anyway, so it's okay. Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. Council Member Hensley. Thank you, Chair. And I seconded this motion to get it to discussion. $150,000, I echo what Siobhan says, Councilman Akers says, about having an arbitrary number. What's the number now that you guys are using for the zero, right? Yes. The budget is zero, yes. So I'm afraid of putting $150,000 in it and never coming back down without numbers to justify who's using these trails. I mean, we've got 40 miles of trails, and are they heavily used? I mean, just because they're there doesn't mean we need to fund them if they're not being used. I think certainly, you know, we don't have any sort of reliable data offhand on the use of all the trails. I think certainly some are more used than others. Lots of the park loops are heavily used by neighborhood residents. Legacy Trail is a well-used trail. So I think as we connect these trails, they will become more well-used. The town branch sections three through five are funded for design and construction, which will take that from a suburban trail all the way into the urban area. And I think that will have a big impact on the use of that trail because that will connect. When the trails connect a residential area to a commercial area and provide a true alternative transportation method, I think that that number will increase. I think we do need to track that over time. I'm not sure if we have a mechanism in place to do so, and we may need to begin to explore that. We had a lot of discussion just about snow removal equipment that was about the same dollar amount, so I would make a motion to amend it down to $75,000, half of what the projected is until we get through figuring out what this is. It seems like a lot of money just to go from $0 to $150 with no data and long-term cost of ownership. All right, we have a motion to amend the dollar figure down. Going once. All right, that dies for lack of a second. All right, if you could wipe some of these people off of the list here and give me a clock. Vice Mayor Kay is up. Thank you, Chair. I don't want to further muddy the waters, but it seems to me pretty clear that we could use $150,000 very easily on repairs right now. So I would offer an amendment that we make that a minimum of $150,000 with the understanding that we will get back as soon as possible a more comprehensive analysis of what it would really take to maintain the trails that we have. So move. We have a motion by the vice mayor and a second from Mr. Maloney. Did you second? He did? He did? All right, so then we're in discussion on Amending the motion to make it a minimum of hundred fifty thousand rather than I guess hundred fifty thousand Discussion on the motion our permit the amendment All those in favor the amendment sign if I'm saying aye Opposed like side All right, those aboard up there. We got it. We got an air to The board is forthcoming there you go there is a couple of days how about that it appears that that motion passes or that amendment passes all right so we've now amended the original motion to make it a minimum of 150 is that correct sir All right, so we're back in discussion of the original motion, which I see no one else signed up. No other speakers? The original was to pass the item as was in our packet with a maximum of up to 150. We have now amended it to a minimum of 150. Isn't that what you said? Was it minimum? Yeah, again, with the understanding that we will get back a more comprehensive analysis and we can get a real figure. that will probably be more than that, my guess, more than $150,000, but it may not be. But we're still talking about $150,000 for trail maintenance, in essence, in either event. Well, we're not, okay, fine. We didn't move to the vote yet. We were just in conversation about it, but go ahead, please, sir. Let me get this straight. You're just talking about providing the money. Did you mention that it would be in next year's budget? Is that in the motion? I think that's what the original motion had. And my only. That was in the original packet. Yeah. And just to clarify, my only concern is that if we say 150 period, that kind of removes the obligation to consider that we might need more. Yeah. And I don't have any problem with, but I don't think we're ready to say dollars yet. That's what I have a problem with. I think we need some more discussion on the whole maintenance thing. And it's a moving target, it looks like to me. So I just have some reservations there. That's why I'm a negative vote. All right. Anyone else on this topic before we move to a vote then? Seeing none, all those in favor, second by saying aye or vote accordingly. Opposed, like sign. Well, wow. I'm going to have to jump into the fray, baby. Okay. Motion passes. Okay. Okay, committee folks, before we take up, noting that we do not have a December meeting, I think it's implicit that we should, or important that we should hear from the director of water quality, because that is in our name, before we drop back to take up the pavement management plan. So, Director Martin, if you'd like to come give us whatever you think you need to say to us between now and the end of the year as quickly as possible so we can drop back to our pavement management plan, I would appreciate it, so with the committee. Thank you, Chair. There's nothing that's mission critical here that I think I need to tell you about so I can be very brief. Thank you. The number 28, Council Member Maloney asked about that. Yes, Blue Sky, we're closing that one up right now, and that will be transitioning over to the public works folks to begin the process of designing and constructing the salt barn. So I think we're in a good place there. Number 32, I know that many of you have been asking me about that. that's the lane closure that has been on Richmond Road. They're in front of the water company. I got an email about that, that they're going to start paving that, weather permitting, on the 20th of this month. So that's very nearly behind us now. If they could do it at non-peak hours, you'd have less emails. So would we. Yes. Thank you. And, you know, otherwise, I think that number 57 is one other highlight one there, is that that's one we just opened a bid on here very recently. It's a $3 million stormwater project that we'll be starting after the first of the year. I can just entertain whatever questions that you may have because I know you're on a short schedule here. You're doing fine by us. We appreciate your expertise. Are there any questions? Yes, sir. Council Member Fred Brown. Thank you, Chair. Number 18 indicates that that is complete. That is the drainage analysis part of it. You will also see it under the construction part of it. I'm scanning very quickly. Okay. It's not complete. Yeah, I mean, it's also number 63. the construction part of it. Okay. Is the, we're waiting on the water company. Okay, because I know the sidewalk's been torn up, and so it's not completed. Okay. Yeah, we need to have the gas line and a water main moved. The gas line, I understand, has been. The water line has not been yet. Oh, okay. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Anyone else? For the director? Thank you for your work all year long. We appreciate it, sir. Okay, we had placed pavement management in here as an update item. I think we're still getting used to the new rating system and the data that came along with it. And I guess, Director, you want to say there's just a couple pages in here, and we'll see if we get any comment or discussion points and move on from there. The only thing that I would mention in addition to the memo is to give you the latest update on where the paving stands at this point in time, and that is that we have completed the paving in 4, 8, 7, 10, and 11 districts. We're one street short in 6th District, which we hope we will be able to get to this week. We finished the 3rd District today, and we are milling in the 2nd District as we speak. With weather permitting, we will get to the 2nd District, and hopefully with weather permitting, we will look at the 5th and 9th district the following week. But that will be weather contingent, and we'll have to keep up with you. The long-range forecast indicates mild weather enough for us to pave into the next week, but we'll have to see beyond that. How do we feel like we're doing with our integration of this style of data collection and usage, especially out there where you're doing the work? How has it gone down? So it's a work in progress, and the work in progress will be when we have completed all the work in the fall. ATS will give us a full accounting of all of the work it has done and the cost that it has accrued. That will allow us to tell districts that have been paved whether there is any additional funding in the original allocation for additional districts. We know that we will already have a spring paving because we're not going to be able to get to the 12th and the 1st district until spring. It will also allow us to take the actual costs instead of a projected cost, which is what the model showed us, Put that into the model along with a degradation ability that the model has so that we're not going to have to do another pavement assessment. The computer software will allow us to program that. And then we will be able to come up with a better analysis of the rankings again based on the roughness index, the overall condition, and the pavement management condition to give to you all with real dollars to look at what you need to do going forward. How early would that be in the year, do you think? I'm sorry? How early in the year do you think that would be? Spring. That's early. All right, Council Member Hensley. Thank you, Chair. I met with their team and I looked at the software and understand the degradation analysis, and we got down into the calculus of the thing. And I think the software is going to give us some good projections, but I think we need a work group to create a formalized strategy for paving. And so I would recommend a working group. Kind of going back to the conversation about the alarmist that we got when the gentleman reported out about how much over how many years. Right. And we kind of placed that issue in committee in the form of five to ten year pavement management plans. So you're saying a kind of a working group to take that and kind of try to groom it, I guess? Is that the thought process? I think we, yeah. I mean, I think we need to have some brainpower applied to this long term while we're getting this new software under our belt and some of the outcomes by the spring so that it'll have some results and some calculations that we can start working with. I think. Councilman Brown, you had placed that issue in committee. Would you like to head up a little working group on trying to help us groom the information? I don't have any problem. I'd like to maybe make it a little bit more formalized into a subcommittee. Fine. I'll make a motion. As we've done before, and then we would, with council's approval, we could get a working group, administration and some council members. We could have a motion to set that up and have it as part of our readout, which we could make room for. Since we will not meet again this year, we might make room for a readout before the end of the year just as a matter of policy. So if one of you wanted to make a motion. I'll make a motion to make a subcommittee for paving strategy. We have a motion and a second by Councilmember Fred Brown. Any discussion on that specifically? All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. Motion passes. Councilmember Akers, closing comment. Thank you, Chair. I just wanted to ask David, if you would, there is one section in the 2nd District that is commercial, where Jimmy John's and Feather Your Nest and it's formerly Old West Main or West Main Service Road, that's what it's called. Would you please let those business owners know well in advance when you all will be milling and paving? Because it's going to be pretty difficult for them to have to park elsewhere, I think. Yes. We've been playing phone tag with your office trying to coordinate that communication with those business owners. So we definitely intend to make sure that they are well aware of our schedule. Thank you. They're very happy about it, but I know that they won't be on the day that their customers can't get into the building. We understand. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you very much, sir. We appreciate it all across the board. I would entertain a motion to adjourn. All those in favor? Aye. We stand adjourned. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.