ASHLAND TRANSPORTATION COMMISSION

MINUTES

NOVEMBER 20, 2014

CALL TO ORDER:  Chair David Young called the meeting to order at 6:00 p.m. in the Civic Center Council Chambers, 1175 E. Main Street.

Commissioners Present:  Joe Graf, Alan Bender, Corinne Viéville and David Young

Commissioners Absent: Shawn Kampmann

Staff Present:  Scott Fleury, and Tami De Mille-Campos

Council Liaison Present:  Carol Voisin

ANNOUNCEMENTS

Quorum check for next meeting (December 18th) – Graf, Bender and Viéville will be available. Chair Young won’t be available for the December and January meetings due to traveling. Will need to check with Kampmann and then get back to the committee.

CONSENT AGENDA

Approval of Minutes: October 23, 2014

Graf has a correction to the October minutes where it says “The commission decided to go down the list one by one and decide on whether to keep the project in the list or remove it. Then at a subsequent meeting they will go back through the ones that they kept and rank them.” He thinks there needs to be an explanation regarding the fact that the projects are not being removed from the TSP, they will just be listed as unfunded. Fleury will come up with new verbiage to use instead of using the word “remove”.

Approved unanimously.

September 24, 2014

Chair Young mentioned during the North Main crosswalk discussion there was no mention of Kampmann saying anything negative but he voted against the motion so he must have said something in regards to voting no. Staff will review the recording and bring the minutes back for approval at the next meeting.

PUBLIC FORUM

None

NEW BUSINESS

RVTD 2014 Drive Less Connect: SOU, Individualized Marketing

Edem Gomez, TDM Planner

Individualized Marketing Campaign currently underway at Southern Oregon University (SOU) called Drive less Connect. Like all things TDM it is not infrastructure based. Their focus is on changing travel behaviors, for example reducing single occupancy vehicle trips by making people more multi modal; bicycling, walking, skateboarding, using transit or carpooling. One of the ways they can accomplish this is by employing a positive marketing strategy in showing the upsides of being multi modal. One of the messages they’ll be using quite a bit at SOU is the environmental benefits. A unique part of the individualized marketing is the custom order kits. They use an opt-in strategy so instead of giving material to everyone they give students an order form to select all of the information they are interested in. There are transit kits, biking kits, walking/skateboard kits, as well as a rideshare kits. Using the order form kind of ensures that they have “bought-in” to the program and they get the material they want. The kits are delivered to them at the SOU campus. RVTD will also be developing this program through outreach and events, as well as partnering with other student groups (Ecology Center of the Siskiyou’s - ECOS, Community Research Center, Multi Cultural Committee).

The individualized marketing campaign is funded through the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT), using federal and state funds. ODOT is committed to using this marketing campaign as another TDM arm. Drive Less Connect SOU is a partnership between SOU and RVTD. RVTD will be doing the day-to-day work with the program, as far as implementation goes. They did get help from PacWest (a design and media group) and also Alta Planning who is very experienced with employing these programs.  To start off they hired two student coordinators who are well connected to the campus already. They both make great ambassadors to the program.

Gomez added current enrollment at SOU shows about 6,200 students and that includes part time as well. SOU is a commuter school. Many of the students come from the surrounding cities so it is a group that can really benefit from this type of program.

He pointed out some of the resources they will be using throughout the year are the Commuter resource center which allows people that are commuting a space to rest or maybe even use a computer in between classes and commuting. In addition to that they will also be using the ECOS, the SOU outdoor program, they have a bike program and the event planning and involvement committee.

Gomez explained this is a yearlong approach; normally the individualized marketing campaigns are short (8-10 weeks) and they are residential. This is really exciting because this is the first time it has ever been administered on a University campus in the United States. They do a pre program baseline survey, before any marketing begins, to determine the normal modes of transport. Once the program ends they will do a post program survey. The difference is then used to determine the success of the program. The baseline survey shows that for the most part SOU is fairly multi modal and may be because there is a large group of students who live in Ashland. The survey shows  42% drive alone, 20% walk, 3% use transit, 6% bike and 22% carpool.

Bender said even though they are the Transit District and they like to push transit, the role they play isn’t just to push people towards transit but to be a clearinghouse for all modes of transport. Gomez agrees with that, his role at RVTD is Transportation Demand Management (bicycling, ride share, skateboarding etc). He pointed out they also offer the bus pass program for SOU students. They pay $15.00 out of pocket per term, which is a 90% reduction for them. He added he has been working with Danielle Mancuso, Assistant Director Student Life for Involvement and Roxane Beigel-Coryell, Sustainability & Recycling Coordinator. He said both of them have been great in helping him and the student coordinators to get everything set up.

Gomez brought up the RVTD levy that did not pass. Right now they are in the process of collecting qualitative information. They are doing a non board survey which basically is getting information about how residents are making those trips and where they are making those trips to. They are trying to get data regarding the evening and weekend service which they don’t typically survey for. They are looking at about a 20% service reduction. They aren’t making any changes now; they are waiting to collect the data before bringing it back to the board for their decision. He added they are in a bad position no matter what they do because the cuts will unfortunately have an effect on people no matter what. They will have two public meetings, one in December and one in January. He will send the information to the Commissioners in case they are interested in attending those meetings.

Bicycle Network Prioritization

Per the discussion at the October meeting staff is providing the Transportation Commission with the remaining high ranked projects for further discussion and prioritization. Fleury stated this ranking will be used for the CIP budget list.

Graf pointed out project B29 shouldn’t have been in the ranking list because they had decided at the October meeting to remove it from the priority ranking. Fleury said it was an oversight on staff’s part.

Viéville/Graf m/s to approve the rankings as presented.

1-B17

2-B7

3-B19

4-B10

5-B16

6-B11 & B31

7- B13/B33

8-O4

All in favor. Motion passes.

OLD BUSINESS

FOLLOW UP ITEMS

Bike Lane letter of support-ODOT

Chair Young signed the letter of support to forward to ODOT.

Audible Pedestrian Signals

Fleury spoke to Dan Dorrell (ODOT) and informed him that we had everything in and are ready for their electric crew to come and install them. Dorrell is trying to get it scheduled. Per the grant, the work needs to be completed no later than February.

Viéville wanted to go over the list of APS buttons that need adjusting with Fleury again. The following still need adjusting:

Both sides of Walker crossing Siskiyou

Lithia at Pioneer adjacent to vehicles stopped at light

Viéville added she also would like a yellow flasher at Siskiyou at either Clay or Faith. She said Faith may be better because it is near the bus stop and has a sidewalk.

INFORMATIONAL ITEMS

Action Summary

Traffic Crash Summary

Officer MacLennan went over a few of the accidents on the crash summary.

Viéville asked about the parking at The Ashlander’s on Siskiyou. On the uphill side of Siskiyou they park across the sidewalk. She isn’t sure if that is the only thing they can do or if they are doing it carelessly but if you are walking along you have to go out into the dirt or the grass to get around the parked cars. MacLennan said they should not be on any part of the asphalt. He will go by and keep an eye on it.

Fleury asked if MacLennan has had any issues with Clover Lane because he received a phone call from a woman regarding the crash on Clover and referred to it as a race track. MacLennan has not heard anything. Fleury said he will be sure to get all of the data to him once they wrap up the traffic counters.

Oregon Impact November Newsletter

COMMISSION OPEN DISCUSSION

Viéville asked about Kim Parducci coming back regarding the North Main crosswalks. Fleury stated she probably won’t be able to come back until January. He wants to wait until we have pretty solid concurrence from ODOT and ODOT is probably going to want a higher level of design than what we have now. So staff will likely have to do some internal design and layout before ODOT is in concurrence. Once that happens, then staff will bring the design back to the Transportation Commission. Right now the person that works on design is tied up on another project but once he gets a little further along then he can work with Parducci on this design.    

Chair Young pointed out he did not see the Downtown Parking Committee update on this agenda. He added he has deferred to Faught in facilitating in this current phase of the process. He said Faught met with the Chamber board and at the last downtown meeting the Chamber gave a prepared speech which essentially was asking for a do-over; including some pretty lofty ideas but nothing specific and when pressed by others about what specifics they had in mind there wasn’t any specific solutions. He added he is at a deflated moment but he is trusting in Faught.

Graf shared that he is brand new to this commission and has only been to one meeting so far so he isn’t quite as jaded yet. The biggest question that he sees is that it hasn’t been resolved whether there is really a parking problem and if there is a parking problem whether it is really a supply problem or a distribution problem. There is a perceived problem that there isn’t enough parking spaces and that is what a lot of the downtown businesses are operating on. Chair Young added it isn’t a perceived problem but rather a stated problem. Our consultant has found it to be a distribution problem. The consultant has recommended a fix to the distribution problem with changing the time limit areas and implementing residential/employee parking permits. We were headed down that path and then all of the sudden everything changes. He pointed out we have spent almost a year working on this and now we have used up all of our consultant time without even exploring any of the multi-modal elements and we still aren’t anywhere near a resolution.

Bender asked about creating a road diet on the other side of downtown or does it not meet warrants?  Chair Young said there are already bike lanes and sidewalks on Siskiyou. Bender was referring to taking it down to one driving lane in each direction. He stated it is probably too radical but there are those that feel that it would be good to calm things on that end of town. Chair Young pointed out that kind of goes along with the Siskiyou Blvd. future discussion item. Viéville said the speed limit increases out there and which is part of the problem and she wonders if the speed limit could be decreased? Fleury said ODOT actually did a speed study a few years ago because there was a complaint near Tolman Creek. The State Traffic Engineer came back and said they were going to leave it as is. He said we can ask them to revisit the request. Viéville pointed out that is a safe route to school. Fleury said he thinks the first thing they should probably do is talk to Dorrell about putting a crossing there. He will talk to him about it and

Chair Young asked about the two vacancies. Voisin said she is working on it with a few people and Fleury said Faught is also working on a few people as well.   

Chair Young informed the committee that Faught had called him to let him know that due to the changes made to the Municipal Code a few months ago his term as Chair will run through April, 2016.

FUTURE AGENDA TOPICS

Pedestrian Network Prioritization - Fleury was going to start this at the next meeting, if there is a quorum.  

Public Outreach/Education

Traffic Control Resolution Update - Fleury is still waiting to get the information from the City of Medford so he can compile his staff report.

Traffic Crash Summary PD letter

Siskiyou Blvd. Corridor

ADJOURNMENT

Meeting adjourned at 7:35 pm

Respectfully submitted,

Tami De Mille-Campos, Administrative Assistant