good evening
i will slowly start i think we're we're
up and running my name is
nina milligan and i'm the chair of the
transportation advisory board
now on my since my screen is flashing
i'm thinking maybe we're starting again
so i will say that again i'm nina
milligan chairman of the transportation
advisory board
opening this meeting of the board at
603 on november 19th
first of all i'm going to call the role
of the
members of the board who are here and so
when i say
your name then please
unmute and say you're here marisol
visser
here uh vice chair cynthia krass
i'm here zucha took oil
here and we don't have tom mcdonald here
yet but we will later
uh and for that reason we're going to
change the order of the meeting just a
little bit there are a couple things
that we have action and voting on and we
want to do that when tom is here
uh let me refer you also
also i'm sorry that we haven't in
attendance um
stephen padua uh senior planner
and john mortensen um
director of the public works um did i
get everybody stephen
and so wallen and jim smith of av we
have a couple people
in the audience and stephen you can help
me with that when we
get to audience comments
which because we're moving approval of
minutes out to
a later time in the meeting we'll go to
public comments right now
and stephen since you're kind of at the
controls
if you could help me bring those people
into the meeting for their comments
sure we have two callers in first i'll
meet
uh connie marsh who is called in
ok we're good
yep go ahead connie so
i'm hoping i'm connie marsh i live on
squawk mountain
and i was going to
do my public comment in more story form
this evening
i did send an email that hopefully
everyone read it was basically
concerning the
details of the complete streets
language that you got in your agenda so
i want to tell you
why i am concerned about our
streets codes because i don't think that
most of you have been involved
in the city and the way roads are built
so what we have in our town is we have
public streets that we know
which are in a thing called right-of-way
right-of-way is not
zoned and therefore things that are in
the right-of-way
don't go through the normal land use
process but what we have been having
and newport way is an example with all
the building there is we have a lot of
development going on
from private developers and what they
are doing is they are building
segments of the public roads
for us and what this has done is this
has created
a very big confusion
over what standards apply
and who is in charge and who reviews
those uh transportation projects
and because i'm a part of the public the
other thing that's super confusing is
when does the public get to see
what is happening to the roads basically
that they use
every day and so using newport way
as an example the development commission
which is a a commission that makes real
development decisions is told that it
does not have
purview over the road
improvements on newport way and so
they couldn't say anything about them
and then it it turned into
a very difficult situation where the
road standards didn't match and
and the community couldn't see anything
that was going on
and and and it was impacting their lives
because they live
right there and what i want to do is
when this
type of language is put forth i want to
try to make sure that we are creating a
system
where all of the development
uh speaks to each other and
there is basically one standard that we
can
that we are using as much as possible
uh there may have to be a few exceptions
so that
it isn't a constant negotiation as to
what the roads
should look like and in this situation
even what right-of-way
is is right away a trail can it be a
trail
uh i don't i don't know uh
i went to the you wrap effort of about
15 seconds
i can i read other codes today that were
more satisfying than the code that you
were presented
thanks thank you connie
we uh allow a limited time for our
public comments about three minutes
trying to be a little generous and we
have to
but uh stephen can you dial up the next
person and when and when he does
uh on you and it's time to speak please
introduce yourself and your relation to
the city
so we have a another caller on that's
area code 206
ending with one floor
i'm sending a request to unmute but
they're not unmuting
hi this is steve pereira okay another
comment that my one comment is i guess i
strongly disagree with only three
minutes for public comment period
city council is five minutes i don't see
why any other city commission
or board is less than that five minutes
uh designated and i would like to see
that revised
to be five minute period thank you
okay and then that is it for public
comment
you're on me right now nina
thank you steven our our little console
keeps flashing at me and i don't always
see
thank you connie and steve for coming to
our meeting and commenting
uh for the uh transportation advisory
board
some of those comments are general and
i'm sure stephen will take him into
advising
when when we are working on uh
procedural things or on the topics
uh more generally to perhaps what connie
was referring to
we do have another member of the board
here
mcdonald do you want to check your sound
and see if we can hear you when you
speak
uh hello good evening hello
thank you for coming
then we'll call that a attendance call
out for
her tom and so he is here and we can now
move
to the approval of the minutes
is that okay with you stephen if we just
get that out of the way we have three
meeting
minutes in our packet they are dated
august 6th september 1st
and october 14. is there anyone
who wishes to comment or correct or
change
any of those minutes
i'm seeing none um
i just stephen do i have to call a roll
for this vote
remind me you can just call for a
general vote
general vote of can they just say
approved
yeah okay so let's uh let's put all
these together since there were no
comments
all in favor of approving the minutes of
those three meetings please raise your
hand so i can see you
and i will call it out thank you that's
unanimous cynthia marisol
sujata tom and nina all voting yes to
approve
the minutes of those three meetings
thank you
boy we got that off the table stephen
that's good
and then let's move into our agenda
items we have three tonight we're going
to go through the recommended update to
the complete streets policy
recovery task force meeting that was
held on
november 12th the report on that and the
board schedule for our meetings in the
rest of 2020 and 2021
and that for that in the first item
about complete streets i turn it over to
senior transportation planner
for the city of issaquah steven padua
great thank you so this item has been
discussed by the tab a few times over
the last year
um a board first got an introduction to
it in the middle of 2019
and then there was further discussion
later in 2019
on proposed concept changes and then
early in 2020
earlier this year there was discussion
on a draft
and then we brought it back later last
month
and revived that discussion to go over
any final recommendations
for the final draft and then tonight
we're proposed to take action on this
just as a quick reminder the purpose of
this policy change is to update city
code
and the purpose of this policy is
actually to influence the type of street
standards that the city enforces
by upgrading the language to be more
consistent with the policies and guiding
principles
identified in the mobility master plan
we have a stronger foundation
for how we're enforcing our policies and
implementing the plan itself and the
reason we're keeping the policy in city
code
is that it puts us in a better place to
compete for federal and state grants
the national best practice for a
complete streets policy is that it is
adopted
into city code and so some grants will
actually grade us
on where we have the policy adopted and
so
you know we had the choice of either
put keeping in city code which is where
it currently sits or
mending city code and putting it into
the comprehensive plan as part of the
whole master plan development process
and we have decided that keeping it in
city code was
puts in a better place to compete for
those grants and since our last
discussion we
received a few edits that i want to show
you tonight
before we go into any further discussion
on for final drafts and so i'm going to
share my screen really quick
and show you the first edit which was
to
make sure you can see my screen first
okay
can you all see my screen perfect so the
first edit
is to the definition of the connectivity
and and the
uh suggested that it was actually just
to cut down the definition
there was really too much language there
more than what we really needed to
define what connectivity was
and and um what i'll do is i'll go
through the three or
two edits and then i'll open it up for
discussion if that's okay with you and i
know
and then the other edit was uh
in line with some of the feedback what
we received at the last meeting which is
that we wanted to keep the policy um
and the mobility master plan and the
definition separated and so
this that is actually to take out of the
guiding principles out of the complete
streets policy and just referenced the
guiding principles out of the mobility
master plan
and we'll be doing the same type of edit
over the mobile master plan
where it directly uh references
the city code for the complete streets
policy
and then the other ask
was for us to go over kind of the
exemptions policy
for the exec exemptions portions of this
policy update
and what i want to do is briefly explain
the process of how this might work and
one example
might be if a developer or to need a
permit for a project where they
have to request an exemption from the
complete streets policy
what would happen is through our review
process all the multiple departments
would actually be reviewing the permit
and so our planners and engineers would
be reviewing the requests and asking the
developer
to defend the need for the exemption and
and what we would be asking for is
actually going through this list of
what's listed for the exemptions
and having them to prove that they
qualify for an exemption and if they
reasonably um
if they're reasonably in accordance with
the guidance of this policy
we would then request permission from
the city administrator
to proceed with approval of the permit
um if they
did not didn't prove that they were in
accordance with this policy guidance
then we would actually negotiate with
them on the project
and the permit process to ensure that
they're adhering to this policy
and the same process would be applied
for our parks department
or even ourselves in public public works
when we move forward with implementation
of our own projects
so i'll stop sharing my screen now
this is tom i have a question when they
talk about negotiate or work with them
is that at a staff level or that
at a permanent review level that's at
the
permit review level um which is monk
staff
uh at this time i think i would like to
we
we got a letter from the public that i'd
like to just um summarize
briefly to
put into the record
this is a letter from
connie marsh regarding the placement of
the policy in title 12
code and stephen addressed
this issue but it was regarding
this which is called a policy and why is
it placed in the code
documents
there are several general comments about
the effectiveness of the document and
how
will it get us where we're going
how when road projects how would they
not be complete
discussing the exemptions that we are
going to be addressing
concern about the exemptions that we are
talking about right now that stephen has
brought up
and another concern that this document
be readable by the public
and they have a consistent pathway for
everyone
and clearly state who the decision maker
is
and how you appeal a decision
and other concerns about conflicts or
compatibility with other documents in
the city
policies title 18 being one of them
and i hope that all the
commissioners have read that letter for
detailed background information
and then when we could do this to go
through this review stephen did you
imagine that we might
look together at your screen at each
chapter
and address questions about them and
then have a discussion afterwards
how do you think would be the best now
that we're looking at it for the
third or so time i have a few questions
and
others do too how would you like to
organize that
sure if um if you have a specific
section i can share my screen if that's
helpful or
we can just discuss it it's however you
want to do it
i'm wondering if it would help the board
if we had
that document on the screen and we could
just quickly scroll through it
i love that you i want to say right off
the bat that i like that you're doing a
redline
and that a red line will help in the
future to show
the things that we have worked on and
explain why they've changed
um so up at the beginning where we have
the
introduction to the uh policy
we will um tom just one second so we'll
we'll go through this section by section
i think um just to make sure that we
that i can hear from everybody the
definitions the vision
the main headings and so tom
if i could can we um focus our questions
on the sections
unless does anyone have something that
they have a question about of the
document in general i see the sujata
does
and tom do you have a question about the
document in general
i was just going to point out that
sajada had a question i didn't know who
the scene
you're on mute
night on your arm you
there we go my question is in the
exception section
so i will hold
very good thank you very much yes and i
do have my chat open now and i'm now
looking at it so you may
use that to tell me whether you have a
comment
are there any other questions or issues
about
the definitions and if you could just
kind of scroll through that quickly
stephen to the end
seeing none let's move on to the vision
i think is the next section
this is cynthia i'm trying to make my
notes jive
i'm sorry i don't carry on i'm
just trying to make sure i understand
where my notes what pages my notes are
referring to
are there any questions about the vision
i have a question stephen
and it kind of has to do with the vision
and that is that
this states very generally
the
all the um the big thing but what i what
i couldn't really find and i wondered if
it should be here is
is how do we get
what we want what we want our multimodal
facilities right and and this
this is the vision not a a street shall
be
something now that comes later
that it shall follow those standards on
the later
document is that is that where that goes
it doesn't go here that
yes because here it says you
implement the complete street principles
but the principles aren't
really here not all the principles are
here just that the system is safe
equitable blah blah blah
and all users are those the principles
the rest of that sentence
yes yeah it is more of what you're what
you're saying
okay
cynthia do you have a question uh
i don't know how important this is but
i'll just bring it up uh number d
i noticed when we were meeting with
council
on the mobility master plan i i made an
observation i thought this was a little
bit confusing
and i think we should just be explicit
seems to me there's two concepts with
maintenance and one is including
in normal budget cycles enough money
for maintenance of what we already have
alongside capital investments
but i also heard another concept that
was making sure that
when we do new projects
that how they are maintained and what
the level of effort for maintaining them
should also be considered when they're
being designed
and i i noticed listening to counsel
they i thought
we kind of went past it but i thought
they were actually not clear
they were i think i think they were
interpreting it a couple different ways
and then we just kind of moved past it
so maybe the latter
isn't important but i did notice it was
a bit of a source of confusion
thank you cynthia stephen if you want to
comment on that and how that plays into
the mmp you may
um and we're talking the section d
that's
listed underneath the vision that's
currently crossed out
oh crap i keep i'm looking at the old
one yeah
so okay well so to answer your question
though the
the this was primarily um
this is one of the guiding principles so
when in this section on
in the mobility master plan where it's
talking about the guiding principles
we actually go into more detail of when
maintenance should be considered
and how what the the length of the scope
of
how much maintenance should be
considered with each of the projects but
either being developed
the way it's described at least in the
stuff that's crossed out
makes it sound like as you're budgeting
and deciding how much to spend on
maintenance and how much is spent on
new projects i think those are two
different ideas and i think they
get conflated the way they're described
right yeah and
that's another reason for us to kind of
cross this off of
adding it to the complete streets policy
is only because it doesn't have that
same context that it does in the
mobility master plan
so this is tom to ask questions then
back to
cynthia and to you
is that reference when they're designing
streets and they look at the long-term
maintenance of the streets is that
then addressed elsewhere
within the ability master plan
yes
so this is basically just questions
about because it's redundant with what's
in the
mmp already okay correct and then yes
that was that was part of the suggestion
to cross it out was
to reduce a lot of that redundancy but
also to minimize
the need for um if this changes in the
future we're not having to make a change
to this policy in addition to making a
change the mobility master plan
so it's just strictly just referencing
rather than trying to
use the same language
thank you i see sujata has a question
thank you so um i guess my question is
to follow on to what nana was saying
about the vision
and sort of the standards um so in this
section we
outline what we want as a vision for
what our streets are
and then later on we talk about sort of
the standards that are
supposed to help us achieve that vision
so i'm just wondering
do we want to you know
somehow reference the fact that the
stamp you know that the
that further below in the standard
section will be how we re
achieve this vision or i think as people
are reading the document they'll know
that the standards sort of outline
what we want our strengths to look like
in order to get to this vision
maybe that's enough but it could be a
way to cross-reference
um and then the other thing it could
potentially do is in the future if
standards change and
i don't think this would happen but you
know move away from
a concept of complete streets or all of
a sudden we're back
to 80s you know five lane car build-outs
or something
then maybe as the standards are evolving
to sort of a
different type of um lifestyle we can go
back and say hey our vision was
this and now these standards don't
necessarily apply
and so we should keep checking back with
our vision
thank you sajanta uh stephen one thing
comes to mind with that is
if this had a table of contents at the
beginning
of the headings the so just to
help the way
all this is written is actually to go
straight into city code
um so these sections will actually be
put together and it'll
show up basically like a table of
contents uh contents where you'll break
it out based on
the policies okay
great ready to move on i think i don't
see anybody else in
the chat let's move on to the next
section
and we're kind of mixing uh questions
and
comments here stephen so i hope you
don't mind just so we can get through
this
all of this
i didn't have any questions on this
section and i'm looking in the chat to
see if anybody else does
i think we're okay let's move on we can
always come back
if we miss you and then here's the part
about the exceptions which
stephen described uh
gave it some context and some further
information
uh does anyone have a question about
this section
i do nina okay the one exception
and i i think i mentioned it in one of
the past meetings i can't remember
the one exception i was wondering about
um
so you know there's obviously the cost
prohibitive and maybe this other section
would drive it
is the notion of environmental impact
because sometimes as we're trying to fit
complete streets
um i mean you know in my work building
long linear projects as we're trying to
fit
you know a standard into a certain place
you know there's cost impact but there's
also environmental impact
so like me living on the side of cougar
this idea
of trying to put a complete street in
that area and what kind of
impact it could potentially cause um
to the hillside or you know to the
environment
and so maybe um knowing what that
uh impact could be to the environment in
the area then that means
you know maybe then the city decides
never to repave or re-stripe that road
and it just leads to badness so
um i'm just wondering if there is um
a way to sort of identify
the potential of impact in you know in
places where they cause significant
impact to environment
um and again maybe the cost picture
piece
deals with that but you know part of our
vision for a complete street is
you know to address global climate
change and if we can just ensure
that maybe our policies are also being
sensitive to the climate around us
maybe we can play with that a little bit
um and maybe add a little bit language
that kind of
i'll just use the previous policy
and it should be i mean i don't know how
significant is significant or how you
i'll let the word smith people come up
with that i mean it shouldn't be a
loophole for people to just get out of
having to build the infrastructure but
there are real places where there
is a significant negative impact to the
environment
so i have a question
the last three paragraphs are the same
in the in this one and the other one so
i don't
see why there's a red line for a change
in them they seem to be really
identical but that's just to show that
they were previously changed in the la
from the last draft okay and right now
i'm just showing the red line forward to
just between from last meeting to this
meeting
and so this new let's say
section f sugata is that
kind of fit the bill are you wanting
something more of it has significant
negative impact environmental impact
the the trick is is we're going to have
a new environmental board
soon who's going to be helping to find
new
environmental policies and i want to
make sure it's consistent as possible
but at the same time not
being contradictory to what
what might be put together by that new
board yeah exactly and that's what i was
thinking
in doing this and so maybe i mean i know
later on we have context sensitivity and
we mention
you know kind of environmental impact um
but if we're going through the trouble
of listing exceptions
um i just feel like i mean because i i
don't i don't know if the city does
salmon safe or if we're moving toward
that or if the city is going to look at
you know trying to achieve other
environmental measures
so i just want to make sure that
our roads and our facility uh
development is not contradictory
to any of the other policies that we
would be trying to implement as a city
and
and you know focus on climate is a big
deal so
i i don't know if we can defer at this
point
to a future climate board to come up
with the words around this
but um what i could
do is um work with our environmental
staff
and uh come back to you with a sentence
that might
uh fit kind of what you had in mind with
that work yeah i think that would be
that that makes sense i'm not i can't um
word smith on i spent a little bit of
time trying to figure out where i
i'm not a wordsmither so i can't um come
up
with the answer at the moment but but
really just trying to make sure
that um in our drive for complete
streets
you know we're we're also making you
know looking at the city's values
holistically and
sure addressing that issue and and what
we can do is include
for when we take action for this item
just include that you know pending the
this amendment
based on new language that would be
included by some environmental staff
yeah yeah and whether you know it's the
environment because i'm assuming then
yeah if we're having an environmental
board in the city they're gonna
have some really clear ideas of how they
want the city to be developing the city
so whatever their standards are seem
appropriate
right thank you sujata and you yeah and
stephen you might be able just to put
the word
um
uh uh right before environmental to the
city's goals to address climate change
because they certainly live somewhere
and they're there already in some form
and they will be
revised and improved by the
environmental board in the future and so
that way at least it's giving a
reference to go look over there
at those standards um before you do
when you're looking at this yeah okay
and then
talking with your staff in that
department would be very helpful
i had another question about the
paragraph with the city administrator
i'm looking around to see the room is
there anybody else
in the room a question i had for you
stephen about the um
the decision residing with the city
administrator
um when you verbalized um how this all
works it all sounds great but when i
just read it
it doesn't it doesn't say that to me
and i wondered is there a um
is there an identifier in the in the
city
manual that says what this kind of
review is called you know like the level
three or level one
level two reviews that we have when they
talk about whether they go through the
city council and all that kind of thing
you said that when a city administrator
reviews this they um
they uh reach out to um department
heads and and it's not just one person
it's all people so
this looks like it's one person how does
how would this reflect
um what you narrated
to be the way that it really happens
sure it's it's through kind of the
permit review process
it's going to be reviewed by multiple
departments and
um being a transportation policy our
group would be reviewing
this element of the review process and
and making the judgment on whether or
not
a developer or just going back to my
example
is justifying the need for an exemption
and if they are showing that they are
doing that then we would go to the city
administrator
for the approval and then that would be
the same for any other department so if
it was a parks project
and they were trying to push for an
exemption for
one of their projects they would need
the city administrator's approval
and maybe maybe that would be
better language i have here is more of
the city administrator approval
more so than having to submit it
directly to the city administrator would
that
kind of fix some of the issue
it's the well the issue with me is that
it resides
it sounds like it resides with a single
person's review and decision
which does not reflect what you had said
that has taken in the expertise of the
other departments
but then another thing well
let's start with that
so if it said after city administrator
in that middle paragraph it said in the
after the city administrator words
shall reside with the city administrator
after
departmental review or
something that is or after the permit
review the
or something that's reflecting that this
goes through this
like what you just said how can you make
it
say what you just said anyway you can
you can come back to that
it's hard to um draft on the fly but
well let's start with the language you
actually just said okay
following departmental review
that helps flesh this out at least a
little bit and
uh let's go with that as an incremental
improvement
and then um then let me ask a question
on the next part unless there's
something else with the question
doing okay right now go ahead and put in
the chat if you have a question or
comment
uh the next part has to do with
exceptions granted shall be
publicly reported now this means then
when somebody is requesting
an exception it doesn't become public
until after they've received approval
what what good does that do
you know what i mean what's the purpose
of making it public after it's been
approved
just to show that an exemption was uh um
allowed it sounds like the question is
when it's submitted
is it someone who's can look at it and
question it
uh what senator review is supposed to
wait till it's finalized and approved or
disapproved before they can see
is that the question that you're
thinking of now
[Music]
still trying to remember
some page saying that this was submitted
for a variant
or or review
so someone who's watching or someone
who's looking
uh looking for something would be able
to see and see if that's under review
before
it's finalized and you know in this case
i'm thinking of
the kinds of things that we do when
there are neighbors involved or
neighboring properties
um how would they know in advance that
an exception is being considered
sujata has a question can i go to sujata
yeah and this is sort of relevant to the
timing of you know when you're saying
because if
in this policy we're saying that it
would be during
initial project planning so that could
be like planning phase pre-thirty
percent
definitely pre-sixty percent and so
public comment
and public review doesn't normally
happen until sixty percent at cepa so
um yeah so i
i agree with sort of what um the others
on the board are saying is that
um if somebody wants an exception and
they're
you know they're sort of rolling in at
the
percent for getting that exception then
how do we
make sure that at some point there was a
touch point with at least the adjacent
property owners to say
if not you know the people in the
vicinity to say hey these people want an
exception this is what this
frontage is going to look like you know
how does the community agree or not
um and so in this policy sort of
because we're asking for information for
that exception so early in the process
that means that the public would have
never seen or had the opportunity to
provide comment
yeah there might be two phases of that
one might be when
like of an initial concept if something
could be developed
uh they submit that that might be
one like gate disorders um
review of whether the project as a whole
the other when you get to 60
you're pretty well in design at that
point an exception would be
uh more for as engineering's going on
now they have another issue and they
would like an exception for that issue
which may be a way to keep going back
and redesigning it but that would be
the second point where i think the uh
variants might be
asked for i think this is bringing up a
fairly complicated
topic and maybe something stephen needs
to take with him
could you just put a little note
to return there somewhere and then
take home all our ideas with you oh
yourself it's like the perfect spot for
a process flow diagram
you know i think what i'll do is i'll
i'll reach out to
our permitting staff to see how to to
make that work where there's kind of
an initial review phase for any
exemptions that might come up through
the permitting process before they wait
well before that 60
uh design portion yeah and some kind of
using a
procedure that we already have
i'm just going to add this and just as a
note okay
okay thank you so much stephen and uh
thank you to the members of the board
anything else on this
exception section
seeing none let's move on to the next
one
which is
interjurisdictional in the comments
about this one
let's go on to the next one
best practices and standards
i don't see any questions in the uh
stephen i want to ask you a question
maybe give this some context uh when i
read this
uh well the way that it read to me
that's what i mean to say is that when
we have
all projects are going to go through a
review
with every single one of these and each
of these have standards and guidelines
um it sounded huge
and like a huge kind of review and that
do all these agree with
one another do they overlap how would
you put
all projects through review through all
of these
one through five
and is that what it says is that what
you meant to say so i mean
just looking at the the first line
it's more along the lines of all project
shuffle best practices
and then the list below is more of this
these
include all these different guidelines
or best practices
or national recommendations that are out
there not necessarily that
one project's going to have to
follow all of them it's more of
whichever one
is best applied it'll make sense to
follow those best practices
does that answer your question uh only
sort of
and because i'm not familiar with these
documents like you would be
the if it's if this is a shall and
that's why i'm giving it um such
weight this is a shall follow best
practices so
do um is this referring to
in these documents a section that says
best practices
and i'm i'm thinking like you know the
the width of a bike lane
if if there's a best practice that the
width of a bike lane is
12 feet um is that the same in all these
i mean if it's following best practices
how do you know which ones to choose and
what
are they and probably that example
the hierarchy of what like when you have
uh plans specs specifications special
like what has a hierarchy if they're
conflicts or differences between them
how would that be resolved
so to answer your question there
actually isn't
they don't contradict each other all
these are kind of specialized
on certain areas of kind of the
transportation system
and so it and but if there
is kind of a
two guidelines with somewhat
contradicting recommendations then it's
kind of
put to engineering judgment on which
standard that we want to apply in the
city of the support
okay let me put it this way too thank
you very much i'm not just that's a good
the answer does this create a checklist
for you when you say that
we shall follow the best practices is
there a
how does that how does that work
well john and i know all of these and
read them
through detail so in terms of the
checklist their checklist is kind of in
our brain of
okay this is they're they're asking for
a bike lane i know to go to the green
book
on this section that's going to provide
for this
type of situation so yes there's a
checklist
but it's not necessarily needing to be
defined here okay
okay anybody else have questions or
comments about this section
i have only one more but i'm looking for
you guys
more sir please yeah and then the only
other
question flash comment i would have on
this section is with the fhwa
um guidelines with that
i'm assuming that's only i mean not that
they're necessarily contradictory but
sometimes fhwa
asks for extra stuff and so i'm just
wondering would we only apply the fhwa
if federal monies were involved
or would we try to you know they have
all those certifications and blah blah
blahs and their
you know requirements because it's a
federalized
you know federally funded project and so
sometimes their level of scrutiny
or requirement is a bit higher um
so you know just wondering if that's a
if only
so shall is yeah nacto ashto that all
makes sense but then
maybe fhwa is only when federal funds
apply because there's a bunch of stuff
in their guidelines that
if you don't have to you really don't
want to
to meet those standards so there's
there's certain documents that we we
definitely need to follow
um every details uh that the manual for
uniform traffic control devices is one
of those documents
but then there's the bicycle selection
guide and and
even in that that document itself it
says
this is a uh national back
best document of national best practice
to be paired with other
recommend national best practices and it
references the other ones the other
documents kind of listed above it so
it's it's it's more on the other
documents actually provide more detail
that are going to be more
applied for more of our situations as
for what federal
fhw wa puts out is a little more
selective
in terms of the type of details they put
out they'll say
you want at least a five foot bike lane
and then the urban bikeway design guide
will say if you have a curb you want it
this wide if you have a buffer you want
this
so it goes a lot more detail so the
the federal fhwa documents don't go that
necessarily go to the level of people
that we usually want
anything else to jata right now anybody
else have one more comment on this page
for the last paragraph
it refers to
if we have federally funded projects it
will supersede our local requirements in
this policy
um can you give me an example of this
and the reason i'm
bringing it up as a concern is that
it to me this read that we would forego
our standards
forego our goals if somebody else was
paying for it
and i that just didn't sound right to me
um we wouldn't we wouldn't set up
standards and say yeah but it's okay if
somebody else has been then i don't care
about my standards that's kind of the
way this read to me did i read that
correctly
kind of a good way to put it is
is typically the federal standards or
for federally funded projects we have to
follow the federal standards by
even the smallest detail but it's not
necessarily in the sense of
if they say we have to have a five foot
bike like we have to have a five-foot
bike lane
it's more of this situation of well
we'll use
eastlake some amish as a good example
that there's a sound wall over there
we don't necessarily have a standard of
facilities
surrounding a sound wall but washed out
and the federal government does
and so we would have to follow their
standard of what would need to go there
based on and whether we had one or not
we typically
you know cities typically won't we would
have to follow their standard
to answer your question
and that's required for all federally
funded projects yeah
i can i can see the reason for having
this i i wanted to
um consider whether
this would put us in a circumstance
where
we might accept funds and do something
that that is
less than our standards
you know but it um i don't know if that
is the concern if usually these
standards are higher or more
rigorous than ours than okie dokie but
um but if it causes us to
reduce the performance of our standards
that's where i was concerned
um just to kind of leave that with you
yeah no
it's it's very rarely will you
well we find ourselves kind of in a
situation where and i know
you're kind of thinking around safety of
of if
you know if we have a fairly funded
project where we put in a trail
they say it needs to be 10 foot we want
it 15 feet you know
they're they're never really going to
have that type of requirement for those
type of projects
their requirement will be if we say we
want to put in a
trail we have to put in a trail and we
can't change our mind later
okay okay let's uh i don't see anybody
else raising their hands or putting in a
comment let's go on to the next section
see we are going overtime on this um
topic so sorry steven
um that's okay it's it's all kind of a
guess of
depending on what we need okay okay this
is on
context since that sensitivity
we already talked about this a little
bit earlier does anybody have any
questions comments about this right now
cynthia you have the floor
so i don't have a super coherent comment
but the thing about context sensitivity
that struck me
is that this is really really important
and as i was re-reading pages one
through six
i was kind of looking for these things
and then when i got to this page i said
oh great everything i was
all of my notes i just crossed out
because it was
addressed by this and one of the things
that jumps out at me is the human scale
i think complete streets i've been in
cities in california where the complete
streets end up being
you know a quarter mile wide to cross
because they put everything
in there and lost track of what it
really is the goal but um i just was
wondering
how this we i guess it's all captured in
the exceptions but
how this doesn't end up getting kind of
worked
context sensitivity is really really
important but it almost
seems like it's an excuse to sort of
make up your own
rules and so i don't know what to do
about that
because i do believe that the
flexibility
and all the things in this captured in
this are important
so i guess it's kind of two comments one
is
does it make any sense to put it earlier
because i just think it's such an
important overriding concept
and the second thing is how do we make
sure that
somebody who's required to build a
complete street
doesn't use flexibility as a way
how does flexibility that's so important
contactivity
sensitivity not become
a way to be inconsistent with how the
policy is administered
and maybe that's not to be answered here
but
i just think this is like where the
rubber meets the road
stephen do you want to comment on that
and then i go to sujata after that
okay so to respond to
your comment question cynthia um
is that we we wanted to have language
that was going to be consistent with
what's in the mobility master plan
and there's a lot more detail around
how to implement content sensitivity per
mode
in the mobility master plan and that's
where we want to leave a lot more of the
implementation
we we wanted to make sure that as you
said we want to make sure the language
and the policy was there
for complete streets it doesn't matter
if it moves
earlier in the policy or not to us
if it makes sense to the board we're
happy to move that up
the main thing is we wanted to make sure
the language was consistent with what's
in the mobility master plan
cynthia do you have a follow-up no i
just think maybe if
we're going to increase readability
maybe i'm the only one that thinks this
but um
it just seems like a lot of the things
that popped into my head as i was
reviewing this were
answered then here so might be useful
for the reader but i don't feel super
strongly about it
it's not a very long document so it's
not a huge deal
well if it helps cynthia i totally agree
with you that
chapter order could be improved a little
bit
especially if i'm moving this up and
moving exceptions down
getting the things that we want to do up
in front
and the things that we will maybe
consider
if we can't do them with that later so
that's an easy fix isn't it
let's go to sujata so i actually think
the opposite of what cynthia and nate
are saying
i apologize and really for me the reason
is because when you read code or you
know
the way it's being written is that it's
like here's our vision
then here are the hows to get to our
vision so these are the planning
documents you want to
you know the natto and whatever
guidelines that you want to follow
in case you can't do that or here are
some exceptions we have to that
you know our vision is x here are the
exceptions to our vision you know
cost environment whatever if you can't
you know but what we want to see are
these very
kind of the guidelines of the you know
best professional engineers out there
these are the standards they've
established try to you shall
implement these things and then it says
here's what you you know as you're doing
those things
just also be aware so it i think you
know when you're trying to
so for me when you're trying to balance
getting people to achieve your vision
with making sure that
your vision isn't so dogmatic that
there's no
opportunity for flexibility i feel like
stating your vision and the ultimate
kind of
how you want it to look on the ground
first and then
saying but in the case of context if it
can't happen later
for me that feels like a better balance
of
stating your vision stating what you
want it to look like and then providing
that
sensitivity um
so it's really a formatting thing and a
personal preference but
yeah thank you sajanta
these are all the comments i've seen for
this
section do you have anything else you
want to say about that
oh before we move on could we get a
little more discussion on
uh what what we want with this section
looking around the room see if anybody
has something they want to say
i'm just going to go down switch out to
anything else about this
no and again you know i if if you guys
i don't feel strongly about it either
way i mean i think ultimately
cynthia's right we're all trying to
figure out how to balance
a desire to see our vision implemented
with a desire to know that it's context
sensitive
um and so to me i you know
however we order it i if you two have a
strip you know if the rest of the board
has an opinion
that's stronger one way i'm totally
flexible
i guess maybe we don't want to spend too
much time in this because maybe
we're just kind of guessing at how it
would be
what the impact of the decision would be
but i go kind of go back to who the
audience is and if you're
you know trying to figure out what's
expected of you as you're proposing a
project
what do we want to lead with um i feel
like this kind of
gets at um the idea what you
do where you're doing it and i think
not just exceptions but actually really
understanding
the context that you're working in and
that just
seems like a supremely important thing
but
uh but i also think sudata makes a good
case so
um i'm okay if we want to
let staff decide
okay let's keep going down marisol do
you have anything that you want to say
about it
i would say that i i think it makes to
me
it makes more sense if it's up or up so
you
that's one of the first things you see
just to
you know to have a context in whatever
we are going to be reviewing after
but again i yeah yeah
i think it should be up hey and then tom
do you have a comment about this
uh no additional comments except for
you know reading the one um
includes a shift forward design at the
human scale for the needs and comfort of
all people travelers and considering
issues such as street width
uh operating speed hierarchy of streets
and stuff like that it's
i mean it reads i kind of know what it's
saying
but it also seems to be
[Music]
to be able to do that but within the
context of the complete streams and
contexts i can sort of design to be able
to have that and
so i think i'm just thinking out loud
and um
understanding it out loud so i don't
think i have any other comments if that
makes any sense
thank you tom stephen how does that give
you everything you need
um just by pure numbers i'm leaning
towards moving it up
okay thank you stephen we can move on to
the next
topic
does anyone have any comments about the
performance
measures and the reporting
on the efficacy of this policy
sorry nina i i do um i was gonna
decide if it was faster to type or just
raise my hand
um uh so the only one i was wondering
about because one of the other things we
talk about is sort of
these um and maybe that gets covered in
modal share but we talk about some of
these more innovative
you know whether it's app based or data
trackers
or um you know ride share or
you know some of these more kind of
innovative technology type
functions and so with those which is you
know how do you more efficiently get
people around your city
um these kind of infrastructure measures
wouldn't necessarily get
to um you know
some of those um kind of innovations
and i feel like if the city you know
were to
start a bike share program not that i
would advocate for that but if the city
were to start something like that
then we would want to somehow be able to
reflect
you know the um time and energy effort
resources we put into that
through our measurement of that so i you
know i don't know if it's some sort of
like
metric associated with just a general
statement around metric associated with
innovative technologies or something but
um it sort of starts to define
innovative ways that people are getting
around um
so it'd be interesting and i think
important to measure that maybe
thank you oh sorry can i just follow up
with what you're saying and that
stephen can you refer to this is a
complete streets
policy and there may be reporting
on the kinds of modeshare and
transportation
applications in the infrastructure could
be somewhere else and
kind of bring and give us some context
on that
sure so for these performance measures
we
primarily wanted to address a lot of
the main performance measures that were
kind of called out in the mobility
master plan
we also want this language to be
consistent with
the performance measures that are going
to be reported out to city council
in the community on more regular basis
in regards to
data's comment on you know if we were to
take on bike show or some type of new
technology
typically through like a pilot program
or any type of new
program we would be reporting out on
that those specific programs
individually with their own kind of
performance metrics
and so we didn't feel like we needed
that type of language here which is why
because we kind of go through that
process with more individualized
programs and pilot projects um
but we can add language in there if it
that doesn't make enough sense
oh no if you guys are reporting it
somewhere else then i think that's
ex i just wanted to make sure that the
city was getting credit where credit is
due
for innovations that we would implement
um and then i actually had another
question on the measures and this is
specifically around the equity measure
and equity is always
um a real challenge to figure out how to
sort of appropriately measure and i
think um
i think the equity i think the
one i appreciate the fact that we are
specifically
calling out our desire to see um
to see more equity in our transportation
system and that therefore we considered
a value to measure that
um and so i i like the public feedback
as a potential stand-in for an equity
measure but
one of the things i really like uh and i
i don't know i can't remember in our
city
you know for some of the other um like
in the recreation world
there's that you know access you know
with an eighth of a mile of walkable
public you know public access to a bike
lane
or you know safe sidewalks
um in communities or you know whatever
it may be
but you know one of the things i think
this is a good start but i'd really
um i don't know enough about how the
city breaks down
with you know the way our um income and
you know kind of how people live
based on sort of that or our health
outcomes
but i'd love to maybe see um
or challenge ourselves to work with more
public health data
and you know parks data and um that
that kind of data to see if there's a
way we could create a potentially more
robust
um measure for the city about you know
putting our our money where our mouth is
and making sure that some of our
least accessible communities um
get as much you know infrastructure get
the get the infrastructure they need so
but i do appreciate the fact that it's
in there
even i'll leave it to you too comment uh
or
reply sure it sounds uh so john i really
actually appreciate the the question
comment that we
the city we have um
i don't know how many of you kind of
familiar with uh
the health and equity action plan that's
kind of been in development
um separate from that process we've
actually had several staff teams working
on
health and equity and trying to address
certain
issues that have you know
that have come up but more more so than
lingering and and how best to address
equity in the city and transportation is
one of those issues where
i'm we've been trying to think about how
to
really address a lot of the access
issues
and we when we looked at the
availability
of data specific to the city as well it
was very difficult
to really find something that was
relevant to transportation and access
and so that's
that's why we're kind of starting with
this starting point
is because we don't it's very difficult
for us
to be more specific
on a performance metric when it comes to
transportation access
we can definitely piggyback off of king
county metro and a lot of their work
when it comes to access to transit
services
but that's not something that we do as a
city and so
while we will definitely be working with
metro to get access to that data and
have that type of information available
to the community
it's hard for us to hold ourselves
accountable to that
and that's really the reason why it's
kind of at this starting point is
because we're still kind of developing
this whole
idea on what how the city is going to
address equity
and next year we're going to be working
on the development of a
racial equity framework which we will
help us
get at this racial equity performance
metric a lot better
so my only suggestion right now is to
kind of leave it as it is
unless the board is is um
more comfortable with having something a
little more specific
but that is that's just kind of a reason
why the language is that it is but i i
completely agree with you
we definitely should be holding
ourselves accountable to a much higher
level
and which what which is what we're
trying to do yeah and again i think this
is a really really good first step
um but you know so maybe one of the
things i don't know
with mapping data the public health
agencies you know they have those areas
with low health outcomes
um and so i don't know if they i think
they might do it by zip
versus postal code level so
if it's by zip then with the city of
isaac why that gets really challenging
because
you know we about what threes of code so
two zip codes so it may not
get us to the granular level but that
could potentially you know if we
overlaid our
sidewalk and whatever network to that
and
that out you know data point but again
it just may be too
um of course aggregate for yeah of
course for our needs
don't they do census block data yeah
again i don't know
that's why i'm not sure it's interesting
it depends on what you're looking for
from public health
but even at the census block level it's
still
it's still hard to even get to the
neighborhood level
to make an assessment of equity
okay are there any other questions about
this section on performance
measures
i have a suit from marshall yes thank
you oh i'm sorry marisol thank you very
much
um so stephen stephen i have a question
about
if if we add anything about the equity
which i also really appreciate that we
are
taking into account um you mentioned
about the metrics from
metro is there any specifics that they
have right now that we could be using
or have you seen anything
they have data specific to access to
the access services or the on-demand
services
it gets a little more difficult
otherwise because they don't really
track that level of data for the fixed
route services
they don't they don't necessarily say at
this particular stop there there were
two pickups where
um someone with a disability or or
any you know any demographic level data
that would be usable for us
but for access or for
the on-demand services they have a
little more specifics
but even that's very slim for the city
of issaquah
sorry i have another comment i'm
thinking about the
the use of the orca cards and you know
how they are
these programs will offer orchestras for
our citizens so i wonder if there's any
metrics on that
from the organizations who provide those
there are um the difficulty
is the issuance of orca cards for like
large
employers they just have
it'll it'll be difficult to get employee
level information
so if one major employer has
three active orca lift
cards it's it's metro won't really
necessarily have access to who
specifically that is without having to
go through their employers first
thank you more to think about it
yeah no we've been we've been working
through kind of the equity and
transportation and access for
um for over a year now and it's it's
it's really difficult for the city as
well to really get at that granular
level that we're trying to get to
so for a start this is kind of
um the language we were comfortable with
but we're happy to work with the board
on adding any difficult language
thank you everybody i think that we can
move on to the next
topic now but i'm in if i'm missing you
stephen i'm not seeing any questions
right away if you have any um
comments you might like to provide to
give us some
ideas about what you're trying to
accomplish here
sure the the the idea behind the
language that's put together for the
implementation step is to
kind of give us the flexibility to work
with the
the language that's in the mobility
master plan and make sure that there's
consistent
language between the two we want to be
able to describe
how implementation is going to work when
using the complete streets policy but
not necessarily against the specifics
that
are more identified in the billing
master plan
and the city-wide strategic plan
i have a question uh inspired by this
one in the first paragraph where it says
the public works staff shall routinely
reference and this is kind of like
earlier in a document where you know you
make use of the best practices in these
other documents
how would anyone know that you were
routinely referencing
the mobility master plan in uh
implementing these steps
how would someone know
um
typically people are going to find the
mobility master plan first before they
even find the complete streets policy
and
that's that's kind of a
typical process for when it comes to
looking at the different policies
just like when we started this process
most people didn't even know we had a
complete streets policy
but most people knew we had a
transportation element where they knew
we were working on the mobility master
plan it's it's kind of how
the flow of information goes when it
comes to these policies
um let me rephrase my question a little
bit and uh um
thank you for that all the same uh
public works staff
shall routinely reference say there was
a disagreement somewhere down the road
and somebody said i don't like the
decision about this that or the other
thing or how you built this thing
and you wanted to say but i followed the
implementation
step and i routinely referenced the mmp
how would you be able to prove that you
satisfied this shell
how i would show that i
met the shell at least the component of
in this policy
yeah it would have to be enforced
somehow and if you
can't prove it how would you enforce it
what would be the point of saying shall
here
oh i see um it's along the lines of
kind of the next step after updating
this policy it's it's
the update to our street standards and
that's where a lot of the implementation
and enforcement of
what is trying to get achieved and the
questions policy that's where a lot of
the enforcement comes in is
that's where the details of the width of
bike lane in a certain situation
or the type of walkway we that we watch
and the type of standard that we want in
any any type of situation based on the
project
that's where we're showing the
implementation or
at least the proof of implementation of
the complete streets policy
that help answer your question please
better yeah
yeah a little bit and uh and what i'm
getting at here is if we're going to say
shall we would have to prove that we did
and there are a couple soft things here
you know routinely
well what does routinely mean every time
an application comes in
every time there's a permit every time
whatever what would be the routine
that you're measuring and
you're doing it to ensure progress is
being made
so these shells are being attached to
things that
might be very difficult to measure and
uh
that's where i was going with that i see
so in in our regular reports to the
translation advisory board
on project progress or to the city
council or the city administration
we're required to actually show which
policies we're enforcing when it comes
to
enforcement of the mobility match plan
what's in the transportation element of
the comp plan
even the land use component of the comp
plan
like if there's any implementation
showing
or even i'm sorry this the city-wide
strategic plan
because there's very specific actions
that we're supposed to be taking on the
next five years
we have to be showing that we're we're
implementing and enforcing those
and so that's that's where we'll be
referencing the
the uh the progress
yeah that side i think i was trying to
ask are there any other questions from
the board
thank you steven this is the end of this
document and have we
completed the review here and what's
next that's it
the next step is i will quickly
summarize kind of the changes that
staff will work on and and then ask the
question if the board is in a
comfortable spot to take action
so very quickly just starting at the
beginning there's
the
there's the uh initial edit to the
definition of connectivity cutting it
short
there is the cutting out the mobility
master plan guiding principles and just
making it a reference as part of the
second section in the vision
we will be moving
um oh adding a sentence uh more specific
to
environmental goals and addressing
climate change as part of the exceptions
and making sure there's
no no contradictory or negative impact
to the environment
as well as adding a sentence
working with a permitting staff to add
in a sentence on how to identify a
kind of an early review process as part
of
any project design to to address any
exceptions that may come up
the other major change was to
move the context sensitivity section
and i think what i'll do is move this
after kind of on the second section
after definitions but before the vision
i think that makes the most sense
in terms of where to move it so that way
context of sensitivity is really first
and up front following the definitions
is that
consistent with what i heard from the
board i'd like to hear from cynthia but
remember you have a chapter called
vision which is
a good place to start too
totally busted i i i
you just said you want to hear from me
and uh i was distracted
i'm totally busted i don't know what the
question was cynthia if you would
if we're moving the context sensitivity
chapter earlier in the
document would you put it right after
definitions
after vision or another suggestion
after vision after vision okay
then the other either other
major change
actually that was the last major change
is that consistent um
yeah i think we got it okay the um
to clarify um is this a
motion and a vote and is it to
recommend that somebody after us like
city council adopts us or what is the um
the specific action please that um
so the yes the uh proposed action is
recommend recommendation to the city
council to amend
um city code 12.10
uh specifically the complete streets
policy
okay do i have a motion
from anybody so moved
here too i have a second
yes second motion
moved by cynthia and
seconded by tom and i will take a
roll call vote and when i call your name
just say your name
and your vote i'm just going the way you
guys look on my screen so
maricel visser
yes cynthia krass
yes don mcdonald
tom mcdonald yes sajata goyal
yes i think i got everybody nina
milligan yes
uh unanimous vote they will recommend
approval to the city that do it for
stephen on that section of the agenda
yes it is excellent we can um we
we took up as much time on the first
section as we have proposed to take on
the second so i'm hoping that stephen
can find a clever way
to get us through the recovery task
force meeting on november 12th
presentation
we set aside quite a bit of time for
that but can you do it quicker stephen
i believe i can i'm going to share my
screen
get to the presentation uh so the
purpose of
this whole discussion on the recovery
task force is
is to discuss
an ass from the mayor's recovery task
force which was to
have boards commissions provide
recommendations for
recovery from the pandemic in 2021 and
they're specifically looking for
any potential actions that the city can
take on
as part of recovery in the first six
months in 2021
and so on november 12th the recovery
task force met and
invited all the chairs for all the
boards and commissions
and each board official was asked to
give a brief update from
um each of the groups works plans
and uh and to go into a little more
detail of what the task force is asking
of each of the ports commissions
nina did you have anything to kind of
add quickly on the november 12th meeting
um only that we shared our plan and
because we are a new board that was
really a
great forum to be able to get some
visibility to the work that we're doing
but that the compatibility of some of
the projects
of the recovery task force such as the
streetery
and the transportation advisory board
exploring
uh pedestrian zones or mobility or
re-uh revisiting what our
streets do that was a
very um interesting combination that
came forth in
the task force meeting and in all the
task force deliberations
thank you so what i'd like to do
is give very brief updates
considering the time that's left for
tonight's meeting just to give you an
idea
of the context of each of these items
when it comes to
the transportation system to kind of
help with the discussion tonight of
what type of recommendations we might
want to make or
or the board might want to make uh to
the recovery task forces
does that work nina
yes go for it stephen okay
so really quick for transit um
the update on transit is that ridership
is down close to sixty to eighty percent
uh depending on the route depending on
the service uh
vanpool's use is down ninety percent
there's been significant cuts and
reallocation
services to areas of the region to best
serve
where essential workers need access to
transit
and what we see is essentially our is
our new base
network for transit in the city of
israel today and
and for metro their financial forecast
looking over for the next 10 years is
they're seeing a two billion dollar
revenue gap
um which is going to be cutting into any
potential implementation of their
long-range plan metro connects
um to kind of give you some perspective
of
that amount king counties adopt
just recently adopted their budget and
metro's total budget
for 2021 and 2022 was 2.1 billion so a 2
billion dollar
shortfall over the next 10 years is is
uh quite a bit
and so without any additional final
financial help
it's going to be difficult to add a lot
more services to what a lot of the
cities are looking for
to go to walking and biking the general
trends that we're seeing around the
region is that
more people want to walk or roll outside
and and
it's significant significantly changed
how we look at access to
our system and and how we explore more
opportunities to get people outside
which is where the growing demand is
it's also spurred stronger support for
more creative ideas to allow people to
be outside
a similar idea might be the streetery
issue that nina had brought up
and you know to provide more service
areas
and so one of the
creative ideas to go along what regional
efforts are going on
is that many cities have taken on
the idea of a healthy and healthy
streets initiative and
and what this is is it creates more of
an open space for people to be outside
and feel safe
and it's a relatively inexpensive
project to implement
and the way it works is you you use
temporary signage to close designated
residential streets
um provide some finding some enforcement
and some education or at least
communication with the community about
what these closures are and it provides
local access
um still so it's it's more about cutting
down a lot of the
through traffic and volumes and cities
who have
implemented or at least the course of
this pandemic have found
sixty to ninety percent cuts and pass
through traffic
and significant reduction in speeds and
and general volume
and so the and the feedback
on a lot of these streets tend to be
mixed depending on location
depending on the people providing
feedback but also the context of
how they was implemented but with
majority success of where these streets
of
or at least the healthy healthy streets
initiative
has been put in place when it comes to
our general uh pattern of vehicle
traffic
around the region what we're seeing is
that for a lot of the
major roadways that are used for
pass-through traffic
for our cities they're about
back to pre-pandemic volume levels
and that's consistent through most
cities around in our region and but what
is interesting about it is that although
those those major quarters are seeing
the same levels of volume all the local
circulation routes are actually still
down to about 60 to 80 percent of
pre-pandemic traffic volume and so a
local example
of of kind of the differences is
front street through downtown was
actually back at normal
traffic volumes back in july
but what we've seen is that people are
traveling at different
uh times of the day and so a typical
afternoon travel time is you know four
to six pm
give or take but now it's looking like
more
1 to 9 p.m those volumes have actually
spread out more through the day
but the total daily volume is about the
same as before the pandemic
and so we've seen this huge shift in how
people are traveling
and more so with essential workers need
to get through
a lot of the cities and we've seen the
shift of when people are working because
of the enforcement of work from home
policies
but also the changes of employers uh
doing staggered shifts and and any other
changes to kind of
work through the mitigated circumstances
for the pandemic
and so what i'd like to do now unless
there's any questions just kind of go
into
the discussion portion of if there's any
ideas
that this city can take on in early 2021
to help address the issues from the
pandemic
and would it be helpful if actually i
stopped showing my screen
oh you're not showing it now did you
want to start showing frankly i never
saw it but um
followed your conversation i think i
think i have it
on my own so i know what you're talking
about we were tracking
yeah and we got it in the packet well my
apologies i thought
it showed that it was sharing okay so i
will end this
um i don't see anyone in the chat does
anyone raise their hands and say they
want
uh marisol serves with me
on the recovery task force
and uh so she may be you
may know most uh what they're what
they're looking for
and i'm looking for any of you who would
like to
make sure i mean that's the only thing
i've noticed living south of
downtown is probably a lot more people
walking
and that's probably the biggest change
i've seen uh i'm still i've
seen more viking groups who put on the
weekend bikers but
well on a day-to-day basis there's just
a lot more people walking
i would say that everywhere people are
walking everywhere i mean i see it i
live in squawk
and people are walking every day just to
get some exercise right that's the only
thing that we can do and i feel that
these are changes that we have we all
have been doing that
perhaps we'll keep up like people have
noticed that
you know perhaps going down um to
downtown you can do it and just go down
and go back up
and and the thing is is um
everything is actually made up
for you to drive there are not many um
sorry i'm trying to find a work where
you can just walk
if you have a stroller or they are not
all the same
you know space or whatever and they are
not open
and accessible for everybody um so that
those
are the things that perhaps we should be
looking into
um also with this i mean with this
treatery is that more people are going
downtown and
you know downtown is so long and then
when you go
um and you try to cross the street i
mean i don't know we have
ever um have heard anything from
people who you know who are needed of
more
time when they are crossing the street
you know they they have
a specific time and that you know i
don't know a lot about it and
unfortunately enough to being able to
walk the street with the with the time
that they are giving you but
sometimes you have to run and i always
wonder that people are
you know like on a wheelchair or if they
have
you know when you break your whatever
you twist your ankle
and you're on all those little rolling
thingies
i don't know if you're going as fast so
i don't know those are the things that i
have
think about it thank you
thank you somebody else
um anything right now
i called your name cynthia but it wasn't
because of you
i was just gonna say that it's funny
because i uh
one of my things i really like to do and
i think i'm good at is
framing problems and lobbing over the
fen
lobbying it over the fence to the
creative people that are going to solve
the problem
and so i'm not very good with like the
just the
spontaneous ideas i mean sometimes i'm
walking around and something occurs to
me
through use but um yeah i'm not
the like framing problems
letting someone else solve them i'd like
to contribute um
being inspired i didn't think of this
until i was listening to
marisol and tom but uh but another thing
it's it's uh interacting with a another
topic on my mind is that and that is
uh pedestrian prioritized
traffic signal things you know we have
the traffic signals set up
to be intelligent for cars
but do they you know sometimes i go to a
crosswalk and and it's especially
frustrating when it's just a pedestrian
signal like the one up at the park and
ride on highlands drive
and i push the light to say i want to
cross and i have to stand there
for the longest time and i know that i'm
more patient than most
a lot of people just walk right through
but if in this
era of increased walking and pedestrians
if
to marisol's point the crossing is
assured to be long enough for
anybody and that when somebody pushes
the light for them that it's signaling
that a pedestrian wants to go let's
change the light for the pedestrian not
just
let's indicate the white light when we
let the green cars go
you know what i mean i know exactly what
you mean i almost said that it was the
one thing i was gonna say because just
this afternoon at four o'clock i was
rushing back for a meeting
on front street at dogwood and that
exact thing happened and i know that
thing is on some kind of timer because
early in the morning i push it it turns
immediately but in the afternoon when
the cars are lined up on front street
it takes a very long time and it favors
letting them
the motorists go through and several pa
there were
several of us standing there for a
really what seemed like an eternity and
i was almost late for a meeting and i
was like i gotta go
but that was the one thing i was gonna
say is just maybe
really fine-tuning that signaling to
uh reflect and even reward the increase
in pedestrian mobility the signals have
i mean there's a progression they're
trying to get a progression of vehicles
through but
i get it yeah that would help would be
if when you push the signals have a
little timer
so at least you know that it actually
did send a code to the box and you're
not going to stand there forever but i
have a timer so people can see the time
and that gives them a sense of like okay
i
know when it's going to turn as opposed
to not knowing when it's going to turn
and you can put those at those two head
buttons
i think yeah and one of the things i
was thinking about is with the streetery
because you know we
you shut down a lot of the streets and
it becomes one way and
you know so we're already sort of
changing our traffic patterns and use
down there
and so you know one of the things i was
we were going one day and it was super
crowded and trying to find parking and
we're like gosh there's a lot of people
and so one of the things we were
wondering or i was thinking about is i
wonder if
using a facility like the issaquah park
and ride
and then sort of creating a safe streets
route for bicyclists or
whatever so you know for if we're
investing our non-motorized
infrastructure into really creating a
bikeable walkable
downtown issaquah then maybe we could in
you know as summer is approaching or in
the spring when the weather is better
you know this treatery is going again
you know use those friday through
sunday you know changes at front street
but then maybe
spread that influence out to some of
the other parts of downtown
and then create like you know sort of
essentially
for people who aren't very um
who aren't very adventurous sort of
create and say okay you can park here
and then we'll you know have delineators
or walkways and use a
portion of the street so we've widened
the pedestrian area
and you'd walk a quarter of a mile and
you'd follow this thing and so it's
almost not just about
getting it's not just about getting to
the place but it's also about
the experience of walking through
downtown issaquah and maybe
being a pedestrian in a part of your
city that you've never been a pedestrian
in
and exploring some of the other uh shops
or
you know stopping at the donut place on
the way or you know whatever it may be
but that could be something that since
we already know we're going to have
impacted traffic
from the streetery could we start
expanding that ring
of impact and maybe creating some
opportunities for people to to walk and
learn how to walk
in their city
i love that so that i'm sorry i love
that idea and
um it makes me think because you know
like right now we are
all learning a lot about ourselves and
what our likes and dislikes are
and and if we like walking i mean what
about if we park by the community center
but we don't really know how to get to
i don't know the mexican place in front
street how do we get there i mean
is there any signage that we can use and
you know let people know that
you know this is this is the way you get
there you know how these signages
in i mean parts of um the touristic
places where they tell you like
five minutes to the downtown or i mean
it's super close but people don't know
and
will make them think about that and i i
mean i really appreciate that thought
because
if people park by um you know if they
park by gilman village
it will make people know that there is a
lot more to see from issaquah and
you can easily walk all the way rainier
avenue to get to this
to the front street i love it thank you
yeah it's just it's an interesting you
know exploring your city at a street
level
gives you you know you wind up looking
at shops or seeing things that you never
you're like i didn't know that existed
so um but
you know i know during the streetery
that the site you know parts of the
sidewalks where people were parking to
go there
were pretty crowded so if we could sort
of
create these temporary uh walking paths
that are wider
than the natural street for those during
those times
it could maybe help with more pedestrian
circulation
yes and that social distancing you need
when you're out walking around
these are great ideas uh temporary
pedestrian ways
um not just places for merchants but
places for people to walk
and and you guys inspire an idea for me
i was on the
wayfinding group
john and steven might know about the
wayfinding
group now i can't remember what we were
called advisory group or something
oh steering committee we were a steering
committee and that project went on hold
when the pandemic
uh hit and staffing and all these issues
and the ability to have meetings
uh was was uh challenged but you know
what what
you guys are saying is that for recovery
we could look at the pedestrian-oriented
way-finding part the pedestrian-oriented
part of our wayfinding system
and implement that sooner in order to
support
this walking this connectivity between
these economic centers in our city
because it is those walkers who are
actually going to go in the door rather
than the guy who's driving down the
street and going somewhere else
so maybe that's a thought is to bring
back that
wayfinding prioritizing pedestrians for
the recovery
anybody else no i'm glad you added the
uh because i was just thinking in
general to
something during the recovery so i think
back to what cynthia was saying about
trying to
reduce the throughput traffic
if you reduce it by 10 seconds you know
what you get that needs your
crosswalk time to get through
and enhance the walking side of it
[Music]
for the recovery
i think we might have given you some
ideas to take
back do you uh report that up to the
recovery
task force or where do they go from here
uh so what i'll do
quickly i'll i'll try to summarize
everything i heard
to make sure i got everything and then
i'll i'll write up a summary
and send it out to um cynthia and nina
to
for kind of finalization before i send
it off to the mayor and the recovery
task force
so what i heard is wayfinding kind of
bringing back that whole
effort for increasing the wayfinding for
the city
specifically around downtown and
downtown streetery
do we want to broaden that to city
destinations or for right now
being that it's looking at the first six
months six months of 2021
just kind of focus it around downtown
issaquah
and then the other effort that i heard
was looking at other opportunities
to widen pathways whether temporary or
maybe potentially permanent
um to increase that access to downtown
issaquah
is that consistent okay did i miss
anything
it sounded like kind of those two main
things um
the other other part was so i i
kind of talked about like the healthy
streets initiative where you look at
street closures to increase
opportunities for people to walk outside
marisol you kind of spoke a little bit
to that is that along the lines of what
you were talking about
do we want to add that to the list of
recommendations or discuss that more
i would say yes um okay i feel like it's
important
not only for one i mean i feel like many
of
not only square mountain need needs this
okay all right so that's that's three
main items
that staff will flesh out a little bit
more and then summarize and send it to
uh nina and cynthia for review and
that's way finding
temporary permanent pathways um
consistent or at least in coordination
with the downtown streetery
and then kind of a healthy streets
initiative idea of pursuing
potential um neighborhood street
closures to kind of expand areas where
people can go
walk in and ride a bike outside and feel
safe that
the only thing that didn't get captured
was uh
and i don't know if it's just because
it's not feasible because you just got
to move the front street traffic through
but just the idea of
maybe visiting this signalization to
reward or respond to the
podesta increase in pedestrian yes
and and maybe john could speak a little
bit more to the feasibility of that but
that's that's my my fault i missed that
on the list i'm adding that
add we'll definitely look at it
thank you cynthia and thank you john so
you've got a report you'll um
send it to us we'll give it the yes this
is from us
and then you'll send it to them sounds
good the next item on our agenda
is the board schedule for the rest of
this year and briefly
about 2021 and maybe you can tell us a
little bit about when new members
of the board will be welcomed
and keeping it keeping it quick though
again i'm cutting you so short because
we spent time i'm so glad we spent time
and i want to thank everybody about
spending time on complete streets
because this we work on for so long
and now we're finally moving it along in
the process and so it was worth the
investment
sorry about cutting short again steven
but here you go it's okay i'm actually
going to turn to john really quick to
kind of
give a brief overview for 2021 but and
kind of open the
table for everyone else okay thanks
steven
the right now stephen and i are working
on the tab recruitment
and the first meeting will be a special
meeting in january to
go over basically the policies and
procedures and
all that kind of stuff and then
just kind of walking down some of the
highlights for on the schedule for 2021
the biggest one will be the
transportation improvement program
that the tab will be working to redo
that and that will take up about most of
the first half of the year
also in the spring the tab will look at
the pedestrian
crossing guidelines two times during the
year the tab
will look at the city street standards
and that's anticipated to be in the
spring and in the fall
late summer 2021 the
transportation advisory board will look
at traffic calming
and then in september the schedule has
it that the
tab will look at transit and the end of
the year will conclude by reviewing the
mobility master plan
and those are the highlights for next
year for this
tab
thank you john and did i miss it or did
somebody say something about
a december meeting oh
a good one i saw that the december
meeting is going to be canceled
okay because then that's uh on the
schedule two
still it shows it's on but that will be
canceled then
yes yeah we um after discussion with uh
uh nina about it we it made sense that
we just cancelled the december meeting
um just because we didn't want to we
didn't have a
sufficient enough agenda for the board
to meet um
okay the next meeting will be aimed for
mid-january for
uh training but also for uh
introductions with the new
board members and then we'll have our
regular scheduled meeting in
january as well
okay excellent anything else on the
schedule or shall we move into reports
if we are i'll move to staff report
stephen do you have a report tonight
yeah a very brief one um we
are welcoming our new public works
director bob who
just joined us i will
let him introduce himself and say hi if
he's listening
oh first of all it's a real honor to
be elected as public
director
you're breaking up a bit you know me you
have a great staff of stephen and john
to uh represent
my interests and
um bob your audio's breaking out a bit
well i don't know
parking
any problem and so
if i uh
i'm sitting here on cougar mountain
so if you can't hear me i apologize but
uh
say briefly i'm happy to have this
i think we lost you bob it's all right
well so bob's our new public works
director
we're happy to have him on board um and
and feeling better about kind of filling
a lot of uh
spots for public works and and feeling
good about kind of moving into 2021
the other quick announcement is that
we're having a new senior
uh transportation engineer who's going
to be starting on december 1st
so we're even filling out more of our
team and as
john said for board recruitment so far
we've received
eight applications or seven applications
as of tuesday i'll be checking tomorrow
again and doing count of final review
interviews will be on december
or november 30th and december first and
then we'll be
moving for city council appointments on
december 7th
question go ahead john
did you get i saw in your email that
uh a lot of uh youth members haven't uh
responded to having a chance
we have so far um i haven't checked
today um but we we as it or at least as
a tuesday i didn't see any youth
uh applications yet but i like i said i
haven't checked today and
so i'll be checking tomorrow and kind of
working through that
right
thank you steven and sorry one last
thing for the staff
additionally for the board we're going
to be looking at
adding potentially adding equity
training for all boards and commissions
and so having deeper discussions about
that and how that may
apply for all our boards and commissions
and kind of what city goals are around
that as well so that's
one thing to look forward to in 2021
thank you stephen and thank you bob and
welcome to
the city of issaquah transportation we
have
fun here i'm looking forward to your
connection improving though you're on
cougar so now i worry
but uh yeah we'll we'll have fun with
you
in the future if you can hear me i
haven't prompted this problem so uh
i'm apologizing for that and uh
but i am committed to make uh mobility
work
and i have a great team working for me
including stephen and john
and another new person we're just
getting ready to
bring on board so uh sorry about the
connectivity
uh it's a comcast issue which is another
one of my problems so
thank you everybody thanks bob yeah
thanks um uh next is the
uh chair report and i have a report this
time i don't usually vote i do have a
report i believe this is my last meeting
with the transportation advisory board
i am and then you still need to write
you a letter i suppose stephen but it's
just
you know i'm procrastinating uh i
put myself forward for the planning uh
policy commission
and since i was accepted i had to say i
can't do both
um and sometimes in my life i guess i
can but that's just way too much
many meetings so i'm going to move over
to planning and uh and there are
intersecting sets so the things that we
learned together
while we were on the transportation
advisory board these last two years and
certainly going to take with me
over to planning and i just want to
thank you
this is my last meeting with you as a
group but i know that i'll be seeing you
guys around
it's been fun working with you
cynthia do you have anything for the um
i got nothing but uh i've been stunned
since you mentioned it so i i don't know
how we'll get along without you nina
you're really good at keeping us on
track and
just uh yeah it's um
thank you for all of your service you've
been a great
part as a real leader on this board and
it's really appreciated
thank you cynthia thank you very much i
agree
thank you tom yeah thank you marisol
uh well you can thank me for ending on
time which i think we might actually do
no when we were halfway through that uh
complete streets i didn't think that was
going to happen
any other business we already talked
about the next meeting
in december is canceled but stephen do
you have
on the tip of your tongue the date of
that january meeting
i don't but i'll i'll be reaching out uh
schedule
um is it is it the same kind of schedule
that we have this year
um
yeah on the calendar it shows uh january
25th
at least on the draft yeah currently our
schedule will still be looking at the
fourth mondays
and on of each month but since we're
going to be getting a significant amount
of new members we'll be
reaching out to them to make sure that
schedule still works for them or
to find out if we need to make any
adjustments so i'll reach out to
everybody on schedule
okay great so if i'm not seeing
anything else that means i need to
adjourn
so tonight thank you to joining the
transportation advisory board meeting of
november 19th at 7 59.
so good night everybody and thank you
for the great work tonight thank you
nina
yeah thank you thank you