TRAFFIC AND PARKING ADVISORY COMMITTEE MEETING MINUTES

Transcription

1 TRAFFIC AND PARKING ADVISORY COMMITTEE MEETING MINUTES MAY 10, TRAFFIC AND PARKING ADVISORY COMMITTEE MEETING CALL TO ORDER 6:00 p.m., Council Chambers, 2200 Civic Center Drive, North Las Vegas, NV Marcia Blake Karen Dyer Christian LeCates Mark Pallans Steve Shoaff Tiffany Shorter Kenneth Susser J.D. Thornton Bishop Curtis Timmons Mindy Tippetts Lance Bohne ROLL CALL COMMITTEE MEMBERS PRESENT COMMITTEE MEMBERS ABSENT STAFF/PUBLIC PRESENT Ish Garza, City Traffic Engineer/Public Works Department Toni Ellis, Planner/Planning & Zoning Department Janice Carr, Fire Protection Specialist/Fire Department Lt. Jerry Hamilton, Police Department Bethany Sanchez, Deputy City Attorney/City Attorney s Office Rebecca Miller, Executive Secretary/Public Works Department VERIFICATION Verification of compliance with NRS 241, Open Meeting Law Page 1

2 APPROVAL OF MINUTES FROM THE MARCH 10, 2010 MEETING Motion to Approve Meeting Minutes of March 10, 2010 Motion: Second: Ayes: Nays: Abstain: Motion: Steve Shoaff Mark Pallans All Present None None Passed OLD BUSINESS 1. DISCUSSION OF DEVELOPMENTS AND RESEARCH RESULTS WITH REGARD TO TRAFFIC CONCERNS BROUGHT TO THE TRAFFIC AND PARKING ADVISORY COMMITTEE AT PRIOR MEETINGS: UPDATE ON MOTORISTS SPEEDING ON HAMMER NEAR THE ANNENDALE COMMUNITY. CHILDREN CROSS HAMMER FROM THE ANNENDALE COMMUNITY TO GET TO SCHOOL AND THERE IS NO SIGNAGE WARNING MOTORIST TO SLOW DOWN: Ish stated the issue was a lack of signage or lack of notification to motorists that there were school children crossing at the intersection of Hammer/Willis/Winterdale. Some observations were done during a school day at approximately dismissal time. The observation found a large number of elementary school age students crossing at this section. There is no signage or other markings. Traffic Operations has ordered installation of school advance signing on the approaches on Hammer. This is an offset intersection which makes it difficult to sign and mark because children cross the street in the general area of the intersection. Ish advised the markings will be installed in the next week or so. 2. CONTINUED DISCUSSION FROM PRIOR MEETING ON DEVELOPMENT OF LESS COSTLY STRATEGIES FOR TRAFFIC CALMING: Karen opened the floor to suggestions from the other committee members for any suggestions they have come up with since the last TPAC meeting. Mindy said someone had suggested at the previous committee meeting to have information distributed in the Home Owner s Associations newsletter which could be beneficial. She also had another suggestion of temporary signage like that which is used in construction areas. The signs could be installed, for whatever length of time was determined, to remind motorists to slow down. The signage could be move to different locations and used over and over again. Another idea Mindy brought up was solar powered speed signs which show motorists their current speed. Ish said the temporary signage and solar speed signs are similar. Traffic Operations does have trailer mounted speed signs that are used quite a bit Page 2

3 throughout the city when there are complaints of speeding. These trailer mounted speed signs are mobile and can be moved quite easily. Traffic Operations has eight (8) of these units and they are always in use due to complaints of speeding on residential streets from citizens. Ish stated he would like to have more of these units. Traffic Operations just lost one (1) of the two (2) technicians, due to the lay-offs, that handled the maintenance on these units. The issue now will be transporting the units out to locations. These units are very costly, even the permanently mounted ones, and can cost from $1,500 to $2,000 each. Once the units are installed, even though they are solar powered, they still require maintenance. Since the last meeting, Ish attended a meeting by the Nevada Department of Transportation (NDOT) and Department of Public Safety (DPS) discussing safety issues and the state s strategic highway safety plan. There is traffic safety funding available for projects. The process involves completing a grant application and the city would be competing for money. The deployment if these units would be an issue. Ish advised the units can be installed on local residential streets as well as on major streets such as arterial and collectors. These units work great in reminding motorists to slow down until the unit is moved somewhere else; then motorists revert back to their old driving habits of driving faster than they should. The trailers are brought back to each location approximately every three (3) months for a year. The repetition of seeing these units reminds motorists to slow down although Ish is not sure Traffic Operations will be able to maintain this schedules. Karen said the issue of speeding will probably be an ongoing battle. Steve asked if there are studies showing how effective marking/striping the streets rather than a sign on the side of the road and what the maintenance costs would be. Ish said having general terms such as Slow or Caution have not proven to be very effective but adding something along the lines of 25 MPH could be and he has seen this done quite a bit. The striping would be high maintenance, especially in this part of the country, although it s not very expensive. Tires going over the asphalt will pick-up oil/emulsions and track these onto the markings. Depending on the street and traffic volumes, street markings can disappear in a very short period of time. Steve asked if it would be effective in a small residential community that does not have a lot of traffic. Ish said street markings are one of the many tools that could be applied but because Traffic Operations is trying to spread their resources out over a large area, he would want to consider the magnitude of the speeding problem before street markings would be done. Otherwise, Traffic Operations could be asked to do this on every residential street and it would lose it s effectiveness along with draining the budget. Ish advised one of the other traffic calming tools that can be applied is longitudinal lane markings that give motorists the impression of being constricted. This does seem to work as does narrowing the street with curves. Mark stated he lives on public streets but it s a private community. He has noticed with the combination of the radar signs and enforcement efforts followed shortly thereafter, it seems to have a longer impact. He said his community lists in their monthly community Page 3

4 bulletin how many people have received tickets (no names are provided) and how many actually live in the community. About 95% of the speeders live in the community. Tiffany asked the general costs of speed humps. Ish said the speed humps on Hammer were approximately $20,000 for one. They are pre-formed vulcanized rubber and can take a lot of punishment. The installation is labor intensive and also includes signage. The speed humps on Hammer have curb stops laid out to narrow the road. The humps on Hammer are what Ish considers a showcase type of installation. City of Las Vegas forms the ones they use of asphalt on site and it can be done much more cost effectively. The much larger, more important consideration is the impact on neighborhoods. Ish has received a lot of requests for speed humps since he has been working for the City of North Las Vegas. Adoption of the Traffic Calming Policy requires that 50% of the property owners in the neighborhood have to sign the petition to request consideration of the installation. He has not received a single petition back. Ish advised he attended a community meeting recently where one of the neighbors who had received the petition form said his neighbors had told him they did not want speed humps in their neighborhood. They are noisy and inconvenient. Speed humps are effective to a greater degree than most other tools that can be used for traffic calming, but they are a nuisance and neighbors don t seem to like them. Karen asked Lt. Hamilton how much his section of the Police Department is being affected by all the cutbacks. Lt. Hamilton said their enforcement efforts will be cut back some because some overtime was recently removed from the Police Department s budget as part of the cost saving measures. So far, no officers have been lost but it may be coming in the future. It s hard to speculate how much of an impact it will have. Lt. Hamilton said he s been working a lot with Public Works in doing a number of surveys around various neighborhoods in the city. All the neighborhoods have been requesting enforcement and they are having a hard time keeping up with the requests. The radar trailers are a very handy tool in a lot of the neighborhoods because the speed is not high enough that police officers can be put in these neighborhoods on a regular basis. Lt. Hamilton said they will probably rely more and more on the radar trailers until Traffic Operations staff are cut back. Steve stated the association he lived in before asked for speed bumps on a 60 foot wide street which is a major thoroughfare for emergency services. Emergency services did not want the speed bumps stating it was too rough on their vehicles. How it would affect emergency services is something that would always come up when you ask for speed bumps. Ish stated the Traffic Calming Policy really does not apply to private streets but he does get a lot of calls from private residential management associations for speed humps. These requests are circulated to the Police and Fire Departments for their review; both have a say since they respond to emergencies in private communities. For the most part, the Police and Fire Departments have been opposed to speed humps. It increases the time to respond and is rough on the emergency vehicles. Ish said since the last TPAC meeting, he has spoken with Juliet Casey in the Communications Department. Ish will be working with her to search for funding Page 4

5 although Juliet does not expect this to be a very expensive effort to develop some graphics for the Council newsletters. The newsletters are something that can be circulated very easily to the HOA s in the community. Karen said this would be very helpful. NEW BUSINESS 1. SET NEXT MEETING OF THE TRAFFIC AND PARKING ADVISORY COMMITTEE: The next meeting of the Traffic and Parking Advisory Committee was set for Monday, August 9, 2010 at 6:00 p.m. in City Council Chambers. PUBLIC FORUM Karen thanked the committee so much for their input and interest at the last meeting. J.D. had a concern at MLK and Carey. The Pearson Center, on the south side of Carey, is across the street from Buena Vista Springs apartment area. This apartment area is run down and hopefully it will be condemned. There are a small number of children from this apartment area who cross Carey to get to the Pearson Center. The children do not go to the corner to cross the street but cross directly by the apartment area. The speed limit in this area is 40 MPH. He is concerned about this situation and would like to see what can be done. J.D. also had a concern with the bus stop on Carey at West Street which is in above referenced area of Carey and MLK. It s difficult for traffic on West Street turning onto Carey to see when the bus is stopped at this location. He realizes the bus is not stopped very long but it s a concern. Rebecca said she travels this way to work and said she has seen the speed trailers at this location in the last week. J.D. said that s correct. The children cross Carey at West Street to the 100 Man Academy. It s the safest time for motorists to cross when children are going to or coming from school because there are crossing guards stopping traffic for the children to get across. School will be letting out for the summer soon and the Pearson Center business will be picking up as they have computers and children will be crossing the street to get to the Center. He s concerned because if the apartments are not condemned there will be a lot of children crossing the street in this area and as children will do they will probably not cross in the crosswalk. Ish advised there are times when a bus stop can be relocated. Pedestrians are not encouraged to cross away from an intersection but they do it anyway. He will take a closer look because he s not sure if the current project includes a median on Carey. If it doesn t, perhaps he can look at adding a median as a pedestrian refuge so children can cross halfway and have somewhere to stand in a protected area; they can then complete their crossing without having to dash all the way across. Toni reminded everyone that the south side of Carey is within the City of Las Vegas jurisdiction as well as the Pearson Center. Ish said it would be a good time to discuss this issue with the City of Las Vegas before they complete the construction project. Marcia brought up a concern at Donna and Azure. East/west traffic on Azure approaching Donna has a stop sign. The north/south traffic on Donna does not have a stop sign. There is a blind corner for traffic turning from Donna onto westbound Azure. You have to inch your way out into traffic. If a car is coming to have to stop halfway into the road to let the traffic go Page 5

6 around you before you can proceed. A 10 foot right-of-way was not done at this corner when the subdivision was built. Marcia is not sure how many accidents have occurred at this intersection as it s mostly residential. With the new set of apartments, there are a lot more kids in this area and asked if this is something that could be looked into. Marcia asked about the possibly of putting up a 4-way stop so both sets of traffic would have to stop to improve the situation. Karen agreed on the stop signs. Ish said he can certainly look into this situation. Marcia also asked about the permanent traffic signal going up at Centennial and Donna and asked when this would be completed. Ish said it would be completed within the next thirty (30) days. Marcia said there is no sidewalk on either side of the street on Commerce as you cross Centennial going north to the school. Marcia stated parents are asking her if a sidewalk will be installed making it safe for the kids to walk to school. Ish is not aware of any plans to extend the sidewalk. It s city policy for developers to complete the infrastructure adjacent to their property when they develop. The asphalt half on the other side of Commerce was done by Public Works to provide an all weather path from Centennial north. It was done on that half of the street because it seemed there would be more students coming from that direction. Marcia said that s not true. Ish will see if he can get the asphalt extended in this area. Steve had a question about the intersection at Losee and Ann. The turn signal is very short for traffic turning from Losee going either east or west on Ann. He lives in this area and every time he makes a left turn the light is red before he gets through the intersection. Ish sent a service technician out to this intersection about two (2) weeks ago for this same complaint. Steve advised the issue is still continuing. Steve said it s such an offset intersection that it takes a little longer than normal to make the left turn. Ish will send a technician out tomorrow to check it out. Mark said he had an item for discussion and possible future discussion about handicapped parking. He has a handicap sticker for parking. When he pulled into the parking lot for tonight s meeting, another motorist pulled right in front of him and took the only handicapped spot and this motorist did not have a sticker. He is not sure how big of a problem it is in the city, but it might be something that should be discussed. Lt. Hamilton said it s been on the Police Department s radar a couple of times for a citizen volunteer program to do some of the handicapped parking enforcement at Walmart and other places around the community but was shelved twice that he knows of. Part of the problem is getting the funding as the Police Department would have to provide the volunteers with equipment and then another part of the problem is the insurance. Also, how would the volunteers get around from place to place; if they use their own vehicles this becomes an issue. Lt. Hamilton it s his understanding this topic is coming up or review again and the Police Department will be taking a look at it. Steve asked if there has ever been a private company come in and ask to take this over. Lt. Hamilton did say someone approached the Police Department a few years ago on this and the former Chief of Police was not in favor of this. Lt. Hamilton said parking is not high on the Police Department s priority list. They do get a lot of complaints and try to address as they can but because of the high activity level on calls for service from the community, parking is further down on the list. It s a secondary task that the officers do when they are out in the field with the exemption being the schools as there is such a large problem around the schools. The traffic unit targets different schools each week but as far as businesses around the community, it pretty much patrols responsibility as they can get to it. Steve wanted to know if a private company could take over Page 6

7 parking enforcement from the Police Department. Lt. Hamilton said he wouldn t be opposed to it. Lt. Hamilton said it would be a very good business opportunity if someone could put a program together and present it to the city. Steve asked if there would be enough of it to make it worth someone s time to invest in something like this. Lt. Hamilton feels it would be worth someone s time. Tiffany advised she used to work for a tow service company and this is what their company did at night. As far as associations and apartment complexes, if cars were parked in a handicapped spot or in the red zone, the vehicle would be towed. This is something that was set-up with the property manager. Tiffany said she would walk through the parking lots and cars that were out of compliance would be stickered but any cars in a red zone, handicap spot or blocking a fire hydrant would be towed. Lt. Hamilton said some of the private communities and businesses do this by hiring a wrecker service to keep their area free of illegal parking. Mark stated when he worked for the City of Ft. Lauderdale, the Traffic Enforcement Department, which was all civilian employees, was the largest revenue maker for the entire city. A good part of the city budget was based upon parking enforcement. Ken said he came from the California area about a year ago where he was an active Sheriff. After he left the department, he became part of the volunteer program. Each station had a volunteer group. The group he was with had three (3) cars that were marked Volunteer On Patrol donated by the city. The Sheriff did permit the volunteers the last year he was there to write up citations for handicapped spaces and they were also authorized to tow vehicles that were parked in a red zone. The cars the volunteers used were insured by the City of Los Angeles. In order to be part of the program, there was a six (6) week school that the volunteers had to attend. The volunteer group was also authorized to patrol areas of homes where the citizens were on vacation. The citizen could come into the station and fill out a form that they wanted their property checked. They were also authorized to check commercial properties. The volunteers had to attend the defensive driving school in Pomona, California where law enforcement officers were trained at and it was a great experience. People from all over the world came to this school for training. It was expensive but well worth it and it helped get a discount on the insurance. Ken said he could see something like this program instituted here. Mark said the big issue here on getting this type of program going has always been the insurance. He s been working with Councilman Cherchio, even before he was a Councilman, on this specific topic and as far as he is concerned there is no justification for saying it s an insurance issue. Ken said since the cars at the program he volunteered at were provided by the City of Los Angeles they were covered under the city s insurance. Bishop Timmons asked what the city s policy is when it comes to handicapped residents having problems with people parking in front of their homes and they need to access this space for handicapped access to their home. He asked what the policy of the city is regarding installing handicapped signs in private residences in front of a home of a handicapped person. Lt. Hamilton said the Police Department has no policy; the streets are governed by the operations of Public Works. Bishop Timmons has seen where other cities have installed handicapped signs in front of residences where there is a handicapped person that needs access to that particular spot to get in and out of their home. The spot is reserved strictly for handicapped parking. Ish said the city does not have a policy in this regard. He has received one (1) request for handicapped parking at a residence. The neighbors that were parking in front of their home were also Page 7

8 handicapped. If a handicapped sign were installed, the resident could sell their home or move out and the city does not have the resources to monitor the continuing need for the sign to remain. It s would be too big of an issue for the city to try to undertake and keep track of. Due to open meeting law requirements, Bethany encouraged all committee members if they know of a particular issue/problem they wish to discuss prior to the next committee meeting, to have Rebecca include it on the agenda under items of new business. If something is discussed that is not on the agenda, someone could register a complaint. When the agenda is published it would be helpful for members of the public who may want to speak on that particular issue. ADJOURNMENT Motion to Adjourn the Traffic and Parking Advisory Committee Motion: Second: Ayes: Nays: Abstain: Motion: Karen Dyer Mark Pallans All Present None None Passed The meeting adjourned at approximately 7:05 p.m. ATTEST: Recording Secretary APPROVED: Page 8