[Durham INC] Draft March minutes

Mon Mar 28 10:03:30 EDT 2011

Here are the minutes.  If you want the transportation presentation, please let me know.  Regards, pat

March Delegate
Meeting

First Presbyterian Church

March 22, 2011

Attending the meeting
were:

Neighborhoods

Burch Avenue – Jennifer Skahen

Chadsford – Darius Little

Colonial Village NA – Chris Wilcox

Colony Park – Don Lebkes

Cross Counties – Pat Carstensen 

Downing Creek – Rebecca Board

Duke Park – Ian Kipp, Bill Anderson, Laura Hau

Golden Belt Neighborhood Association – John Martin, DeDreana
Freeman 

Long Meadow – Pakis Bessias

Morehead Hill Neighborhood Association – Kacie Martin

Old East Durham – Chloe’ Palenchar

Old Farm – David Harris

Old North Durham – Peter Katz

Old West Durham – Brett Walters

TLNA – Susan Sewell

TPNA – Adam Haile

Watts Hospital Hillandale – Tom Miller, Jo Pelligra

Woodcroft – Scott Carter, Heidi Carter

Visitors 

Jim Wise – News and Observer

Lynwood D. Best – City of Durham, NIS

Matt Millken  

Hartmut Jahn – Neighborship

Jack Warman – BPAC (Bike / Ped)

Dan Clever – BPAC (Bike / Ped)

Marc Dreyfors – East Durham Greenway Transit

Randolph Lawrence – Bikestation / Mobis Transportation

Speakers

·      Andy Henry – City of Durham /
Transportation, 560-4366, Ext 36419,
Andrew.henry at durhamnc.gov

·      Pierre Osei-Owusu – City of Durham /
Transportation 

·      Phil Loziuk – City of Durham /
Transportation, 560-4366, Ext 36434,
philip.loziuk at durhamnc.gov

·      Wesley Parham – City of Durham /
Transportation, 560-4366, Ext 36425,
wesley.parham at durhamnc.gov

·      Dale McKeel – City of Durham /
Transportation, 560 4366 Ext 336421,
dale.mckeel at durhamnc.gov

·      Ed Venable – City of Durham, Public
Works Dept

·      Jennifer Rogers – TTA

·      Joey Hopkins – NCDOT, 220-4600, jhopkins at ncdot.gov

Websites
referred to in the presentations

·      http://www.ourtransitfuture.com

·      http://www.gotriangle.org/

·      http://www.dchcmpo.org/

·      http://www.ci.durham.nc.us/departments/works/transportation.cfm 

·     
http://www.smartcommutechallenge.org/ 

·     
http://www.ci.durham.nc.us/bond2010/repaving_plans10.cfm

·     
http://www.gotriangle.org/go-local/partners/designingbetterbus/

·     
http://www.durhambikecoop.org

Minutes

Tom Miller opened the meeting, and delegates and visitors
introduced themselves.  DeDreana
Freeman introduced the Transportation Forum, and Mark Ahrendsen went through
the agenda.

Andy Henry gave an overview of transportation planning,
which looks at projections of population and employment, as well as the current
transportation facilities, to make plans that meet financial, environmental and
other constraints.  At all steps,
there is public participation, as well as a lot of agencies involved.  The specific plans are:  

·     
Comprehensive Transportation Plan (CTP)– a state
requirement to look 30 years into the future

·     
Long-Range Transportation Plan (LRTP) – federal
requirement to plan 20 years; if a project isn’t in the LRTP, it can’t be in
the TIP

·     
Transportation Improvement Program (TIP) – list
of projects for the next 7 years, as worked out from priorities of local
governments in the DCHC-MPO and NCDOT (very complicated picture of the process);
if a project isn’t in the TIP, it can’t use state or federal funds; getting a
project from feasibility study to completion takes 4-10 years

·     
Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) – projects city
will spend money on

He also presented information on the Triangle Regional
Transit Program, which is a multi-county effort that could include light and
commuter rail, bus improvements, high-speed rail, and station planning.  Public meetings are going on now, with
alternatives analysis to be done by June, and a decision by county
commissioners of the Triangle Counties by August on whether there will be a
referendum this fall on the 1/2¢ sales tax to pay for the system.  Note that light rail would run for
12-18 hours per day, with as little as 5 minutes between trains; commuter rail
operates less frequently and mostly during “drive time,” would go between
Durham and Wake County, and have stations further apart.  To get folks to the train, we would
need a lot more bus service (as much as 33% or 100K more bus hours in Durham
County), as well as looking at bike and pedestrian connections to the stations.

Jennifer Rogers and Pierre
Osei-Owusu talked about bus service plans and travel demand management
(TDM).  They have started gathering
public comments on short-term service improvements, which would be implemented
by August.  There will also be a
process to determine in the longer-term (to be implemented by August
2012).  Please invite these folks
to your neighborhood meetings if you want to participate in the process.  We have had a Travel Demand Management
program since 2000 (10 years!), which has the objective of cutting the growth
in vehicle miles travelled by 25%; it does things like the emergency ride home
program, free DATA passes for city and county employers, bike racks and
rideshare/carshare programs. Other things that are going on:

·     
Real-time “where’s the bus” that shows buses
from different systems (CATS, DATA, etc.) on your mobile device

·     
Automatic passenger counters on about ½ the
fleet to get more accurate data on when people get on and off the buses

·     
Free WiFi on the buses

·     
The Smart Commute Challenge to encourage folks
to try alternatives to single-occupancy vehicles this spring 

·     
Bull City Connector

·     
Hybrid buses (cut gas consumption in ½) and the
plug-in hybrid initiative, which cut greenhouse gases

Joey Hopkins and Ed Venable talked about re-paving.  We have city streets and state streets
in Durham.  NCDOT spends about
$3-4M/year on the secondary state roads (e.g. Duke Street), which will re-pave
about 40 lane miles so it would take over 30 years to do a whole cycle; the
federal stimulus funds let us do about 3 years of catch-up.  The city has money from the 2010 bond
referendum to do a lot of catching up on streets, starting in early April.  The city has 4 contractors (for
different quadrants of the city); each contractor will have 2 crews doing
repaving, 1 doing milling and 1 raising the “manholes” (I think the new term is
“sewer access points”).  The
objective is to have no more than 10 days of clumping over the raised
manholes.  Both the city and the
state set priorities for which streets to repave based on the Pavement
Condition Rating (assessing different kinds of cracks every 2 years), traffic
speeds, traffic volumes, and so on. 
They also do some preventive maintenance, which saves money in the long
term.  

Phil Loziuk talked about traffic signals, pavement marking
and traffic calming.  The 388
traffic signals get inspections and preventive maintenance twice a year
(partial every six months and full every year), plus there are service calls.  The signals can be fixed cycle,
actuated (change when needed), or coordinated (with other signals); a given
signal often changes to a different form late at night.  They do intersection traffic counts and
look at signal timing at least once every two years.  Pavement marking can be paint of thermoplastic; the lines
should last at least 5 years (some much more, depending on traffic) and the
detail markings (like cross-walks) are on a 6-year cycle.  If you have requests such as cross-walk
marking, new traffic control signs, or speed/safety studies, please call
Transportation (560-4366) or Durham One Call (560-1200).

The speed hump program is currently suspended for lack of money.  When there is a speed hump program, the
requirements are: 500-2500 trips on a residential city (non-state) street, 85%
of the drivers going more than 31 mph, the posted speed being 25 mph, concurrence
from emergency services and approval from 75% of property.  The sign that says “your speed is” can
slow average driver by about 2 mph. 
There are other techniques: diet on width, tick marks to make the street
look narrower and traffic circles (can be used for higher volume streets).  As part of bond issue, Duke/Gregson is
getting some 6’ extensions of the sidewalk, which significantly improve
pedestrian visibility and should make it safer.  Roxboro/Mangum/Markham is finally getting rid of
rhino-barriers, with some change in shapes of curves, a new cross-walk, and a
raised concrete median.

Dale McKeel talked about bike and pedestrian activities in
Durham as shown in bike, pedestrian and greenway plans:

·     
Engineering – New sidewalks and bike lanes,
pedestrian bridges over freeways, sidewalk repairs, curb ramps and so on

·     
Encouragment – Safe routes to schools, a
cyclovia (Bull City Open Streets), Bike to Work Week, Durham Bike Co-op, Bike
& Hike Map

·     
Education – Bike rodeos and training on bike
traffic skills

·     
Enforcement – Share the road

·     
Evaluation – Review of crash data and bike and
pedestrian traffic counts

Finally there are some new projects: 

·     
New non-motorized public works vehicles

·     
The feasibility study for making the downtown
loop 2-way is finished.  It is
feasible, but would take $20-25M in city funds, so will have to wait for a bond
referendum.

·     
A Traffic Separation Study (TSS) is a
comprehensive study of at-grade crossings on the NCRR corridor, from Neal Rd
east to E. Cornwallis Rd. in RTP, to prioritize improvements to meet challenges
of more rail traffic, possibly faster rail traffic (high speed rail) and more
pedestrians crossing downtown.  The
improvements could be closing crossings entirely, at-grade improvements, and
grade separation (overpasses).  It
is an 18-month study, starting this spring, so look for the public meetings on
it.  

·     
Norfolk Southern has filed to abandon corridor
going north from Amtrak station out to Avondale Drive.  City of Durham and NCDOT Rail Division
have stated their intention to purchase the corridor for future rail use, with
interim use as a bicycle- pedestrian trail

On a question about getting a left-turn light, the decision
looks at traffic the whole day (needs something like 50,000 in opposing traffic
and turners) so having a really bad ½ hour is not good enough.

A couple items of INC business:

·     
Please pay dues.

·     
The Boarded-Up Houses Committee met with Rick
Hester and learned there is an ordinance with more teeth in the pipeline.

·     
The legislature’s egregious billboard bill was
going to the Senate Transportation Committee on Wednesday. INC has been working
with neighborhood groups in Winston-Salem, Wilmington, Greensboro, and
Asheville (check out the websites of the umbrella groups in these cities), as
well as other organizations representing planners, cities, counties and
environmentalist, to oppose the bill.

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