Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAbout2007-04-30 MinutesCity Council Street Committee Minutes April 30, 2007 Page 1 of 11 Member Aldermen Mayor Dan Coody Ward 1 Position l — Brenda Thiel V10 Ward 2 Position 2 — Nancy Allen CityAttorney Kit Williams � 1 Ward 3 Position 2—Robert Ferrell Ward 4 Position 2 - Lioneld Jordan City Clerk Sondra Smith ARKANSAS City of Fayetteville Arkansas City Council Street Committee Meeting Minutes April 30, 2007 A meeting of the Fayetteville City Council Street Committee was held on April 30, 2007 at 4:30 p.m. in Room 326 of the City Administration Building located at 113 West Mountain Street, Fayetteville, Arkansas. MEMBERS PRESENT: Alderman Lioneld Jordan, Chair; Alderwoman Nancy Allen; Alderman Robert Ferrell; Alderwoman Brenda Thiel Staff Present: Ron Petrie, Chris Brown, Tim Conklin, Gary Dumas, Dan Coody 1. Call to order The meeting was called to order by Chairman Lioneld Jordan. 2. Approval of the minutes of the April 16, 2007 Street Committee meeting. Alderman Ferrell moved that the minutes of the Street Committee meeting held on April 16, 2007 be approved as submitted. Alderwoman Thiel seconded the motion and it passed unanimously. 3. Presentation from Carter & Burgess of the recommended imurovements associated with the Favetteville ERnresswav Economic Development Corridor Proiect that is to be included in the Transportation Bond Program. Brian Vines with Carter & Burgess said they have done a lot of work since the February meeting at which they made a presentation. At that time they presented some alternatives to the Committee for improving access to the Mall and the business district north of the Fulbright Expressway. Since February, Carter & Burgess has met with City staff, with AHTD and the Federal Highway Administration to go over the different alternatives and get their input on what we are doing. The analysis was then completed to prioritize the improvements and see what we can do to best use the funds that are available. He said they are here today to present their 113 West Mountain 72701 (479) 521-7700 (479) 575-8257 (Fax) accessfayetteville.org City Council Street Committee Minutes April 30, 2007 Page 2 of 11 recommendations. He said a litmus test was used for each of the alternatives to keep them in line with the purpose of the study. Some of the questions they asked regarding each alternative were: are we improving traffic operations, will the alternative help or hinder, are we improving access to the area, is it cost effective, will it fit within the budget available and will it stimulate economic development. The alternatives presented at the February 12 meeting totaled around $120 million which is outside the money available for the projects. What Carter & Burgess has done since then is develop some incremental steps to implement the ultimate design. He showed a slide of the study area, bounded on the north by Main St. (in Johnson), on the east by College Ave., on the south by Fulbright Expressway and on the west by I-540. He said they took the historical traffic data, developed what the growth rates are and then applied those. They then looked at the capacity of the roads and determined whether the volumes were going to fit. He said today the traffic volume on Fulbright Expressway is 36,000. In 2025 it will be at 69,000. They have tried to make sure the growth rates do not put the roads at capacity. They applied an exponential decaying factor which acknowledges the current growth rate but assumes a point where the growth will plateau. He said the study they completed of the area confirmed the results of the citizen survey done earlier. The areas the citizens considered to be hot spots are the same ones Carter & Burgess analyzed. He said the first alternative brought to the Committee last time was the Sam Street extension. He now presented the first step in that improvement which is a one -lane flyover (for northbound traffic coming from College going over southbound traffic), widening to two lanes with one lane going into the business park and one lane merging into the Fulbright Expressway. This will help the traffic situation at Joyce and College by removing the northbound U-turn. It will also provide an additional access point to the business area. There will be a signal to make sure traffic doesn't back up and create a bottleneck for traffic trying to get on the Fulbright Expressway. The already existing traffic light at Millsap & College will help meter the traffic and will send it out in platoons. He said the preliminary cost estimate for this project is $3.8 million. He presented a computer generated simulation of the traffic and what this flyover would look like in 2025, with p.m. peak traffic. The second alternative which was presented last time was an interchange connecting Steele with North Hills. The first step for this project would be installation of a dual -lane roundabout (for traffic flowing from Futrall Drive, Milsap Rd. and North Hills Blvd) bringing in two lanes off the Fulbright Expressway with an additional U-turn to get the traffic that wants to go back to Gregg Ave. To help with connectivity with the sidewalk and trail system, the existing sidewalk would be extending along the south side and on down to Gregg Ave. This would help tie into the trail on the existing City trails system map. He said the roundabout also gives the City an opportunity to do some landscaping, a fountain, statue or something that is unique to Fayetteville. The cost estimate for this project is around $1.5 million. He presented a computer generated simulation of the traffic with a.m. peak traffic (which is the worst period for this area). He said the entire simulation covers the peak hour where there is an eb-and-flow of traffic but the roundabout seems to handle the traffic well. Alderman Ferrell asked if there are any other places in Arkansas with a roundabout that have the current traffic and anticipated growth that we have. 113 West Mountain 72701 (479) 521-7700 (479) 575-8257 (Fax) accessfayetteville.org City Council Street Committee Minutes April 30, 2007 Page 3 of 11 Brian Vines said though he isn't sure they have the same expected growth as we do, Conway is going to be getting two two-lane roundabouts on Hwy. 65 in front of Hendricks College. That will be the State's pilot project to see how a two-lane roundabout works. Ron Petrie said he had the opportunity to meet with the hospital about this project. He said the administration had a lot of concerns about the anticipated congestion at this intersection and they spoke very favorably about this design. He said the City of Rogers is also putting one in at the Pinnacle Hills exit. Brian Vines said if there is concern, Carter & Burgess can bring in some examples of how this design works. Alderman Ferrell said he would like to see some examples. Brian Vines said one of the things they noticed when they were doing the analysis was that the traffic along Futrall trying to access Gregg Ave. starts backing up with the 2025 traffic. He said a way to alleviate some of the congestion at Futrall and Gregg and at Gregg and Shiloh is the installation of a "Texas U-turn" and he showed the Committee a simulation of traffic with this U- turn. He said this would provide for a third lane. Initially two lanes work well but there does come a point when the traffic becomes heavy enough that you need the extra lane to decrease the delays. In response to a question from Mayor Coody, Brian Vines said the estimated cost of the roundabout is $1.5 million. The U-turn would be an addition to that amount. Kip Guthrie said there are three primary areas for which they are providing solutions and those three projects will take the bulk of the money available. The roundabout itself will help solve some of the congestion at that existing button -hook ramp. The Texas U-turn is not immediately needed. As traffic grows and it gets more congested, that is something that can be added as an incremental step. In response to a question from Ron Petrie, Kip Guthrie said they have set aside a certain amount of money in each project just for aesthetics. Alderman Ferrell asked to see the figures for what has been set aside for aesthetics. Brian Vines continued with the third project which would address the problem of opening up the west side of Gregg Ave. for development. The suggested solution is the extension or realignment of Van Asche from Gregg over to Garland, utilizing the existing bridge under I-540. This would include two 14 -ft. lanes with a 10 -ft. trail segment which ties into the City's trail master plan. This would be just the first phase of what would eventually be a divided four lane with a median and the trail. This first phase would open the area up for development and provide access into the business park. 113 West Mountain 72701 (479) 521-7700 (479) 575-8257 (Fax) accessfayetteville.org City Council Street Committee Minutes April 30, 2007 Page 4 of 11 In response to a question from Alderwoman Thiel, Brian Vines said the cost estimate includes (to the best of their ability to estimate at this point) the right-of-way, engineering, utilities, etc. Ron Petrie pointed out that the right-of-way has already been donated to the City for this area. Brian Vines showed a computer-generated simulation of all three of the options presented working together with p.m. traffic. Brenda Thiel asked why only one lane is being planned for the flyover. Brian Vines said that more than one lane would put us over the budget available. He said it wouldn't be that difficult to come back later and widen it. He said the estimated 2025 traffic does not justify more than one lane. He continued that there are some immediate cost effective ways the City can help some of the capacity issues in this area. He showed a slide listing these options, saying that the top four are things that City staff could do in-house. The first possibility is a separate traffic signal head at Gregg and Futrall for west bound traffic on Futrall turning right to go northbound on Gregg. This can be overlapped with a southbound left to keep the traffic moving. The same configuration is suggested for Gregg and Shiloh with a northbound right overlapped with the westbound left. At Mall and Joyce they suggested looking at restriping the northbound approach so there is one through lane and one right -turn -only lane. In the model, that really helped in keeping the traffic moving. At College & Millsap he suggested turning the through lane into a left -through combination lane creating a dual -left configuration. The last suggestion was to do some striping changes at College and Fulbright to create a longer weaving section from Fulbright to northbound College. He said they have one additional suggestion. They have had several people come in from out-of-state to help work on this project and one of their questions was how to get into the CMN business park area. He asked Kip Guthrie to explain. Kip Guthrie said their suggestion is that with some coordination between the City, the Chamber of Commerce and the local area businesses an effort might be made to establish a network of signage for this area and a destination point. We could create another "crowning jewel" by creating a destination where all the signs are the same and everything looks the same so when you enter the mall/CMN Business Park area you know you have entered it. Alderman Jordan opened the,/loor for public comment. Mayor Coolly said he knows that the State will be keeping a portion of the $13 million we received from the Feds a couple of years ago for administration. He asked if these jobs could still be done within the amount of money we will receive. Brian Vines said the three projects, without the U-turn, are estimated at around $9.3 million. Mayor Coolly asked what the cost would be with the U-turn. 113 West Mountain 72701 (479) 521-7700 (479) 575-8257 (Fax) accessfayetteville.org City Council Street Committee Minutes April 30, 2007 Page 5 of 11 Kip Guthrie said they had not figured in the U-turn in the estimates because the traffic doesn't really warrant it yet. He said they could get an estimate if one is requested. He said the quick fix outlined by Brian earlier with the traffic signal head at Gregg and Futrall with the right protected arrow would get the traffic moving and would buy a year or two. There being no public comment, Alderman Jordan brought the discussion back to the Street Committee. Alderwoman Thiel said she agrees that the traffic signal head will make a big difference. She said she believes all these are good projects. Alderman Ferrell said overall he thinks there are some really good ideas being presented but he wondered how long the two lanes on Van Ashe to Garland will handle the growth. Alderman Jordan said he has the same concern. Brian Vines said when this project is complete it will handle quite a bit of traffic. He said the when the road is complete it will open up development in the area and as the area is developed, the developers will help build the other two lanes. Alderwoman Allen said she thinks the projects look great. She asked what kind of time frame we would be looking at for completion of all the projects. Kip Guthrie said there are some hoops that we have to jump through because it is a Federal earmark project and there are some environmental issues to be dealt with. He said it also depends on which order the City chooses to complete the projects. He said he doesn't think the construction time on the roundabout will be nearly as significant as the flyover. He roughly estimated somewhere around 2010 for completion. Brian Vines said it behooves us to get construction going as quickly as possible because of the rising construction costs. He said one of the nice things they had heard from AHTD (State Highway Dept.) and FHWA (Federal Highway Dept.) on the flyover is that they look at the flyover as a local street. That helps us from the environmental perspective. And the fact that the slip ramp is within existing right-of-way which has already been cleared will make the environmental aspect a lot easier. He estimated that we could get all the design done on all the projects within the next twelve to eighteen months. He thought one project could be started in about a year and then the other projects would follow. It would depend on whether the City wants to package them as individual projects or bundle them together. Alderwoman Allen said she thinks this is great and she said we have to come up with something that will generate business and development out in that area. It is complicated even for locals to 113 West Mountain 72701 (479) 521-7700 (479) 575-8257 (Fax) accessfayetteville.org City Council Street Committee Minutes April 30, 2007 Page 6 of 11 get into the area. She also liked the idea about similar signage in the area to help people identify the area. Alderman Ferrell asked if the retailers and hospital community in the area had provided any feedback. Kip Guthrie said when they had the signs up asking for citizen input they went to a lot of businesses to leave business cards with contact information requesting input and many of the restaurants committed to handing the cards out to customers. That is probably the reason for the high number of responses to the survey. Most of the people they talked to at these businesses said they were for anything that it takes to get better access. Ron Petrie said there are several options for what the Committee can do next. The Committee can move this forward to the full Council. The next step after a decision is made is to get agreements associated with the earmarked dollars from the State. Those agreements will also have to come to the Council for approval. Once that has been done design contracts will be let for the projects. So at some point a final decision will have to be made on what we want them to design. He said he is comfortable with the Street Committee giving him the authority to move forward or with moving it forward to the full Council. He said we have to get to the point that we all agree on the concepts. Once we have those concepts, there may be some small changes that will be brought back to the Committee for review, but no big changes can be made. Alderwoman Allen said she believes time is money and if we don't find some way to make the businesses in that area accessible, the businesses will no longer be here. She said she is in favor of moving this on to the full Council. Alderwoman Thiel moved that the concepts presented by Carter & Burgess be moved forward to the full Council. Alderwoman Allen seconded the motion. Alderman Ferrell asked Mr. Petrie if this issue needs to go to the Council before he can go to the State Highway Dept. Ron Petrie said it doesn't have to. However, he said if the Committee's intention is to take the issue to the Council at some point, it is wiser to do it earlier rather than later. He would hate to go back the State after they have looked at the concepts and say the Council had decided not to do it. Gary Dumas said we could have this presentation at the agenda session a week from tomorrow (May 8). James Arbuckle said the Council will probably want a little backup information about how we came to this point. He said they can abbreviate the presentation of the projects but will probably add a little more background and information about the citizen survey, etc. If we start with just 113 West Mountain 72701 (479) 521-7700 (479) 575-8257 (Fax) accessfayetteville.org City Council Street Committee Minutes April 30, 2007 Page 7 of 11 what was covered tonight, the other Council members won't have a full appreciation of how we got to this point and all the alternatives that were discussed Alderman Ferrell amended the motion to include a presentation at the Council agenda session as well as putting the issue before the City Council at the next meeting. Alderwoman Allen seconded the motion and it passed unanimously. Alderman Ferrell requested the information regarding the money set aside for each project for aesthetics before the agenda session. Alderman Jordan agreed and said he would also like information about what the cost would be for the Texas U-turn project. 4. Presentation of the preliminary plans for the Garland Avenue widening proiect between Fulbright Expressway and Howard Nickell Road in association with the Transportation Bond Program. Chris Brown presented the concept plan for Garland Avenue which was designed by Carter & Burgess. He pointed out the relocated auto park driveway which is being constructed by Sam's Club and which will be signalized outside of this contract by Sam's Club. He also pointed out one of the major elements of the concept plan which is the reconstruction of a box culvert. In response to a question from Alderwoman Thiel, Chris Brown said that Sam's Club will be signalizing the on/off ramps on both sides of Fulbright Expressway. They will be signalizing three different areas. He showed the typical section which includes 100 ft. of right-of-way and a five -lane section with 14-11. outside lanes functioning as bike lanes. There is a 10-11. greenspace and a 6 -ft. sidewalk. On the west side there will be a 6 -ft. greenspace with a 10 -ft. sidewalk. He said that is for the trail connection. Matt Mihalevich, the City's trails coordinator explained that the future Clabber Creek Trail will be 6.5 miles going west. He said we have a lot of the land needed for the trail but as it approaches Hwy 112 or Garland Ave. it needs to parallel in order to hook up with Scull Creek Trail which will be our backbone trail. The best way to get past the interstate is to go under where Van Asche goes. So we need to jog to the north and go under that bridge where Van Asche will go and as we build the rest of Van Asche, continue it straight on in to Scull Creek. He said the City standard for trails is 12 -ft. and the rest of the trail will be 12 -ft. wide. Adding the two extra feet would be more consistent with the rest of the trail. He said the trail would be along the west side of the street and Park West is the development that is coming in there and will be building that part of the trail. He said the Shiloh Trail, which has already been built by the Springwoods project, is a 3/4 mile 12-11. trail that will be hooked into this trail. In response to a question from Alderman Ferrell, Matt Mihalevich said the Shiloh Trail is asphalt and this trail could also be asphalt, which would probably be cheaper. 113 West Mountain 72701 (479) 521-7700 (479) 575-8257 (Fax) accessfayetteville.org City Council Street Committee Minutes April 30, 2007 Page 8 of 11 In response to a question from Alderwoman Thiel, Chris Brown said adding two more feet to the trail would cost about another $25,000. Alderman Ferrell asked if the money for these trails will come out of the bond money for trails or if it will it be charged to the roads. Ron Petrie said that would be at the discretion of the Street Committee. He said we are not yet at the point of having good solid costs on this whole project in order to know whether we have a cushion. We have $800,000 to be used for the first three years for trails. So the money can come out of either pot. He said the intention for the $800,000 was to spend as much on Scull Creek as possible but there is no requirement that it be spent on that project. Alderman Ferrell said it is his understanding that you can't use any of the Parks or Trails money for streets or anything else. So if there was a windfall there, you couldn't get any of it for streets. He said the citizens specifically voted to allocate money for the trails. He said he believed if we add the extra two feet to this trail the money should come out of the trails money. Ron Petrie explained that you would actually be adding six more feet. In reality the preliminary concepts that were approved before the vote showed six foot sidewalks on both sides with the wide outside lanes. To get the trail to ten feet, we added four more feet from what was shown on those plans. Alderwoman Thiel said it makes sense to widen the trail so it lines up more closely with the rest of the trail system. She said she has no problem with this as long as it comes out of the trail money. Alderman Jordan agreed. Alderwoman Allen said she also agrees that it should come out of the trail money. Matt Mihalevich said there will be some savings if we use asphalt rather than concrete — six feet of concrete versus twelve feet of asphalt. Alderwoman Thiel moved that the extra two feet be added to the trail to make it match up at each end to the entire trail system and that the cost for the additional six feet would come out of the trails money. Alderman Ferrell seconded the motion. Alderman Jordan opened the floor to public comment. Glen David Wilson said he noticed that this is on the west side of Garland Avenue. He asked if the same profile will be continued up toward the University from I540. 113 West Mountain 72701 (479) 521-7700 (479) 575-8257 (Fax) accessfayetteville.org City Council Street Committee Minutes April 30, 2007 Page 9 of 11 Ron Petrie said the State is doing the design on that portion and their plans are so preliminary that there is nothing to share at this time. He said the original concept showed a five -lane section through there but there is no verification on the final design yet. Mike Johnson asked if the cost estimate for the Van Asche extension includes rebuilding the intersection. Ron Petrie explained that if we do anything at this point to this intersection, the state is going to make us use Hwy 112 as the major road so this road would curve, just like Hwy 112 does now. In the future, we anticipate having the Rupple Road connection and the Howard Nickell/Van Asche be the main road and this will be a true "T" intersection. So we have pulled these improvements back from that intersection to avoid having to go in and build in a curve that we might have to rip out in the future. We will need to do some transitional things there, such as installing a right -only lane but the details for that intersection have not yet been worked out with the State. Tracy Hoskins said that typically in the street cross section we have a six foot concrete sidewalk. In this concept we are talking about changing that to a twelve -foot wide trail. Since we naturally won't do it half concrete and half asphalt, he asked if we are assuming that the original six-foot sidewalk will be converted to asphalt or will the trail portion be converted to concrete. Ron Petrie said he understands that if we widen the trail to twelve feet we are talking about using asphalt. Matt Mihalevich said that 6 -ft. of asphalt is hard to lay down. He said typically if the width is 6 feet it will be concrete and we would add another six feet of concrete to the side of that. However that is something that will have to be discussed with regard to this particular development. Ron Petrie said even if Mr. Hoskins gets a jump start on the construction of his development, the staff would recommend that we collect funds and not have him actually build anything. Tracy Hoskins said his question is whether the City will collect funds for asphalt or concrete. There was some discussion about the cost of asphalt versus the cost of concrete. It was determined that the discussion of whether this portion of trail would be asphalt or concrete could be taken up at a later date. In response to a question from Alderwoman Allen, Matt Mihalevich said that the Master Plan has 129 miles of trails and we now have 14 miles of hard surface, paved trail and another 14 miles of soft surface trail. That does not include on -street linkages. We are young in the process but we are moving forward fast. 113 West Mountain 72701 (479) 521-7700 (479) 575-8257 (Fax) accessfayetteville.org City Council Street Committee Minutes April 30, 2007 Page 10 of 11 There being no further public comment, Alderman Jordan returned the discussion to the Street Committee. There being a motion and second on the floor, a vote was taken. The vote was unanimously in favor of the motion. 5. Discussion of a proposed revision to the construction plans of the Van Asche Boulevard Extension proiect currently being constructed east of Gregg Avenue as requested by the adjacent property owner. Ron Petrie said we are partnering 50150 with the developer and property owner in this area, which is commonly called CMN Phase III. He pointed out that the median narrows as the road goes over the bridge over Scull Creek and then it flares back out to meet the existing median. We got a late request from the property owner for some additional median cuts since they now have a development going through the approval process. He displayed a slide showing the original proposed median cuts and the additional cuts requested. He pointed out that Lot 23 has no direct access off Gregg Ave. and there are similar problems with other lots. He said in his opinion this is a legitimate request and something they can make happen as a field change through the construction but he didn't feel comfortable making the decision on his own. The addition of the curb cuts would cost approximately $20,000. The developer has agreed to pay his share of these costs. We have not touched the contingency on this project and have in fact identified a couple of areas where we will not be using some of the rock and undercut that was planned resulting in over $50,000 in savings. Alderman Ferrell moved approval of this request. Alderwoman Thiel seconded the motion and it passed unanimously. Alderman Jordan opened the floor for public comment. There was none. Alderwoman Thiel asked when the Committee would be discussing the other end of Garland again. Ron Petrie said that is scheduled as a 2009 project by the Arkansas Highway Dept. The State is doing 100% of the design. The City has very little input on the design itself. There will be public meetings held by the State. We are paying 100% of the cost of the project on the other end of Garland so we do have input on that. Alderwoman Allen brought up an item for discussion that was not on the agenda. She said she has enormous concern about the strip of Poplar off College Ave. which some people think leads to Gregg Ave. but which actually goes into someone's house. She would like to see a speed table put in there. She asked if this is an appropriate forum for this discussion. 113 West Mountain 72701 (479) 521-7700 (479) 575-8257 (Fax) accessfayetteville.org City Council Street Committee Minutes April 30, 2007 Page 11 of 11 It was agreed that since this issue had been discussed in the past by the Street Committee, it would be appropriate to put this on the agenda for the next Street Committee meeting, giving staff time to come up with costs. Alderwoman Thiel said the entire process for requesting speed tables had been changed and she asked if Mr. Petrie could go over the new process at the next meeting to re-educate the public. 6. Scheduling of the next Street Committee Meeting The next Street Committee meeting was scheduled for Thursday, May 31, 2007 at 4:30 p.m. 113 West Mountain 72701 (479) 521-7700 (479) 575-8257 (Fax) accessfayetteville.org