June 6, 2012

CTC Agenda for 7 June 2012

Agenda for this week’s Council Transportation Committee meeting has been posted. Reproduced here for your convenience. The meeting starts at a convenient 5pm and is held in the Pickering Room at City Hall NW next door to the Holiday Inn.

  1. Pavement Management Program

    Staff Support: Bret Heath

  2. AB 6404 2013-2018 Six Year Transportation Improvement Program
    Exh A;
    Exh B;
    Exh C;

    Staff Support:  Gary Costa

  3. North Issaquah LID – Roadway Section Briefing –

    Staff Support:  Sheldon Lynne

I believe the “North Issaquah LID” is the little-known plan to smack another new road from NE 62nd St (road that runs between Fred Meyer and Home Depot) west to connect with the roads in Pickering Place. Costco wants more (car) access.

April 21, 2012

CTC 4/18/11

Her are Karen Behm’s notes from this week’s Council Transportation Committee meeting…

Most of the meeting time was spent discussing the Central Area Plan and how to fund it. Primarily the 12th street potential over or underpass of I-90. good questions etc. – topic too extensive to explain but no direct impact to our mobility at this point in time.

The 2nd agenda item was the Transportation Improvement Plan – The 6 year TIP and Gary handed out a list of scheduled presentations

  • PPC – April 26th
  • Chamber – May 3
  • Council transportation committee June 7th
  • Council public hearing June 18

Plan is here:

http://www.ci.issaquah.wa.us/Files/TIP%202012%20to%202017.pdf

attend one of the presentations if you have time!

3rd agenda item was project updates

  • 15th and Park Dr traffic signal: I think it will be a 4 way stop or something like that.
  • Something about 24 and 25th Ave / Park Dr. too – I think he said more crosswalks.
  • Newport/Oakcrest Safety Improvements: -adding additional flashing sign for crosswalk
  • Mine Hill crosswalk: Type 2 (engineer speak) crosswalk. Also revising 3 curb ramps for ADA.
  • NW Sammamish Rd: bike lane striping from SR 900 to State Park
  • Juniper St: – didn’t quite catch all, but basically a sidewalk for rest of the street – maybe only on north side. [They're adding sidewalk on the north side of the street from the Gilman Village driveway on Juniper behind the Boarding House Cafe to the corner with Rainier Blvd. Also one very short missing bit on the south side of the street --jy]

Most of this work will be implemented in July.

Sheldon mentioned that WA Dept of Ecology grant program remained intact with the final State budget. What that means is the City is hopefully going to get a grant to fund the rest of Rainier Ave improvements (trail, impervious pavement, and Confluence Park streetside parking). Not happening this year. But hopefully soon. If grant is received, that funds about ½ of the 1.3 mil project. Would have to spend the grant dollars by 2015.

Next meeting tentatively scheduled for May 10th, 5 PM

August 6, 2009

Early August

Tuesday 8/4 is (was, but I’m leaving this here for historical purposes) the National Night Out which is a community engagement event sponsored in Issaquah by the police department. There will be many community groups outside our police station providing information and entertainment. I’ll be out there talking about GAIT. The event runs from 5pm to 7pm. Be sure to stop by, and then head over to the community center for this week’s Concert on the Green with “Magic Bus”, a 1960′s-style rock band. Come out in your tie dye! :-)

Thursday is the next Council Transportation Committee (CTC) meeting. Agenda includes actions on ITS enhancements funding, improvements at SE 56th and 221st Place SE (by FedEx), and vacation of a portion of Mall Street. There will be an informational update on the planned roundabout at SE 43rd on East Lake Sammamish Parkway. That’s at 5pm in the Pickering room at City Hall NW.

Wednesday was Bike to Market day for the Sammamish Farmers’ Market up by Sammamish city hall. Their market runs from 4pm-8pm. Check in to get a small reward for riding your bike, then snag some veggies and baked goods and enjoy music by Kris Orlowski and his band.

July 6, 2009

July events

The Council Transportation Committee will meet this Thursday 7/9 at 5pm in the Pickering Room at City Hall Northwest. The agenda includes:

Discussion of “Transportation 2040″
I assume this is some long-range visioning.

AB 5997 SE 56th and 221st Place SE Intersection Modifications
This is the intersection just west of East Lake Sammamish Parkway by the service station/car wash and FedEx.

AB 5990 Developer Agreement with the United States Postal Service for Quitclaim of Right-of-Way
Part of the planned freeway undercrossing by the old Zetec property

AB 5978 ITS Enhancements Funding
ITS is the Intelligent Transportation System which is supposed to help smooth traffic flows around town

This Wednesday 7/8 is Bike to Market day at the Sammamish Farmers’ Market. Be sure to check in when you get there. When I went last month they gave me a nice reusable grocery bag. Almost made all those hills worthwhile ;-)  The market runs 4pm to 8pm at the Sammamish Commons right by city hall. More info on their website: http://www.sammamishfarmersmarket.org/

Later in the month, mark your calendar for these events:

7/22 7pm Sustainability Movie Night: King Corn
Not really about transportation in any way other than that when you get around by walking or biking your fuel is food and this movie is all about the industrialization of America’s food system. Plus it’s a free and fun night at the movies with other folks from Issaquah.

7/23 5:30-8pm at the Community Center, Project Porchlight is distributing FREE compact fluorescent light bulbs and they need help from people willing to go door-to-door in their neighborhoods to spread them around. Let’s do that on foot and by bike! Let me know if you want to get involved, or just show up. I’ll nag again when we get closer to the day.

June 1, 2009

Events for the first week of June

Bob reports that they had a nice Bridges ride last Wednesday. This week promises to be even nicer. Mark your calendar for every Wednesday at 6:30pm in the Community Center parking lot for this fun social ride.

Also on Wednesday, the Sammamish Farmers Market has declared the first market day of each month this summer as Bike to Market days. Their market runs from 4-8pm every Wednesday. I’m planning to huff and puff and clatter up the hill for this first one around starting time so if you want to ride along, let me know.

This week’s previously scheduled Council Transportation Committee meeting has been canceled so the next meeting of that group will now be on July 9th.

In weather like this it’s a better time than ever to walk, bike or bus to your destination. Give it a try!

April 10, 2009

April CTC on Tuesday 4/14

CTC is the Council Transportation Committee. They’re meeting on a strange day this month: Tuesday 4/14 5pm at CHNW (City Hall NW)

Here are the agenda items of interest:

  • ITS Enhancements – 2009 projects (ITS is the city’s “Intelligent Transportation System” traffic monitoring program)
  • 2010-2015 Six-Year Transportation Improvement Program (TIP) (This is where big expensive projects get planned)
  • AB 5956 SE Bypass Project Final Record of Decision (Yes, they’re still trying to get this put to bed.)
  • Project Updates (These are current project status reports)
    • Newport Way W of SR 900
    • SR 900 WSDOT Widening
    • I-90 Undercrossing
    • SR-900 Pedestrian Overcrossing of I-90

I know the time is extremely inconvenient, but if any of this stuff looks interesting to you I urge you to join me in attending.

March 3, 2009

March CTC

This week’s Council Transportation Committee meeting has some walk/bike/bus stuff on the agenda. I plan to be there, but more citizen presence is always welcome at these things. There isn’t always a chance to provide direct input, but hearing the discussion can be instructive.

The meeting is at 5pm on Thursday 3/5 (yes, extremely inconvenient) at City Hall NW which is by the Holiday Inn up north of the freeway.

Here are the agenda items with approximate times (these pretty much always stretch) and notes from me about what the walk/bike/bus relevance is:

5:00 Newport way trail oakcrest to lakemont
(more discussion of the mixed-use trail to be constructed along Newport Way west of SR900)

5:05 Black Nugget Road Re-Opening

5:30 AB 5954 Operations and Maintenance Agreement

5:35 AB 5955 SQUAK MOUNTAIN TRANSIT – PWE WORK PLAN
(forwarded from Council, study of options for a bus on Squak)

5:45 AB 5956 SE bypass project record of decision– PWE WORK PLAN

5:55 I-90 Seismic Retrofit Project – WSDOT
(no direct impact to walk/bike/bus, but will affect the undercrossing of the East Lake Sammamish Trail (you may have noticed all the orange fences that just went up))

6:00 April CTC Meeting Schedule

May 28, 2008

CTC 6/4/08

The Council Transportation Committee meeting for June will be next week on Wednesday June 4th at 5pm at City Hall Northwest. The agenda is up on the city’s webpage. Here are the items on the list:

  • AB 5841 Development of Position Statement for Safety Improvements to Issaquah-Hobart Road
  • AB 5837 Letter of Support to Sound Transit
  • AB 5842 ITS Bond Measure
  • AB 5844 Evaluation and Determination of ‘A’ List Projects for Concurrency
  • Proposed Accomplishments for the Maple Street Study

I plan to go and would encourage any other interested folks to attend.

April 14, 2008

CTC 4/10/08

CTC is short for Council Transportation Committee (and is part of the reason I’ve started a page here on the GAIT blog to decode some of the acronyms and mystery terms that crop up when dealing with transportation policy and our various government agencies)

The first thing on last week’s meeting agenda was a presentation by Steve Crawford from the Issaquah School District on the plans for a rebuilt campus at Issaquah High School. There will be one driveway for cars accessing the campus that will enter at the NW corner of the property from 2nd Avenue. There will be a traffic signal at this intersection with signal controlled crosswalks north/south on the east side of 2nd Avenue and east/west on the south side of the access road. A sidewalk will follow the south edge of the access road into campus. There is another driveway coming off 2nd Avenue farther south for bus access only. That entrance has a crosswalk with no signal across 2nd and sidewalks on both sides of the street running into campus. There will be nearly 600 car parking spaces on campus. There are bike racks in the plans. It is not clear how many bikes can be parked. I’d guess on the order of 50. When there were questions about pedestrian access, Mr. Crawford said, “There really aren’t that many high school kids that walk to school.”

Next was a presentation about plans for work on Newport Way west of SR900. This was the most complex item which a staff member whose name I didn’t catch was trying to de-mystify for the committee members. The gist of the discussion turned out to be about the fact that there are significant ped/bike improvements planned here as part of an agreement with the Talus developers. The original agreement was for fairly minor improvements (increase shoulders from 4 feet to 5 feet wide), but there is a move to instead create a 12 foot wide mixed use trail separate from the roadway. This plan is in negotiation but would result in a new mixed use trail from near SR900 up to SE 54th Street if I’m understanding correctly. The stretch at the beginning of Newport could go either along the existing course of Newport or along the extension of Maple Street across SR900 with a pedestrian bridge across Tibbetts Creek. This could be a pretty significant addition to our non-motorized transportation network if it can all come together.

Next was a brief discussion about changes to the Metro bus route 269. This was largely based on past discussions and it was not clear in this meeting what the changes are. They should go into effect in September, though ;-)

There was a discussion of ITS and someone’s going to have to help me out on what that stands for. It’s the traffic monitoring system they recently installed that I think encompasses the traffic cameras, signal coordination, condition signs, etc.

Complete Streets was next. It was confirmed that the Village Park Drive improvements that looked so expensive on the list before are off the list now. In its place, staff was proposing a full restriping of SE 43rd Way between East Lake Sammamish Parkway and 228th Ave SE to put 5 foot shoulders on both sides of the road rather than the existing 10 foot shoulder only on the downhill side. Estimated cost for this job was $77,000. There is some concern about parking for maintenance workers at a water district property on the north side of the road. Council members also reported that they weren’t aware of citizen desire for this link. These uncertainties kept this link off the recommended list at least for now. I believe the committee sent the list of improvements (new sidewalks, crosswalks, bike lanes, two radar speed signs, and an audible pedestrian signal for front and sunset) to the full council for approval so staff can get on with design and implementation.

There were a couple of other brief issues rushed through to finish up the meeting by about 6:30pm.

Thoughts and actions:

  • It would be great to get some joint project going with the schools and GAIT, preferably led by students.
  • Folks interested in ped/bike connections along Newport Way west of SR900 should contact their council members as it looks like the Talus developer is ready and willing to do a lot of work at no cost to the city if we can just get the decision made. I think it’s the Land Use Committee that is the next hurdle so start with council members McCarry, Rittenhouse, and Traeger.
  • Folks who would use bike lanes on SE 43rd Way should likewise contact council members, especially those on the CTC (Barber, Butler, and Schaer) to express their desire to see that project added to this year’s Complete Streets improvements.
  • GAIT should come up with a prioritized list of improvements we would like to see. Complete Streets is budgeted at $500,000 per year and we should be working to guide that money to where it can do the most good.

April 3, 2008

Transportation Committee

The city just posted the agenda for the 4/10 transportation committee meeting.

I had taken a group of action items at our last meeting relating to the Complete Streets projects for this year. After a quick meeting with Gary Costa and Rory Cameron from Public Works Engineering, I felt that enough of our issues were already being addressed that it didn’t make sense to do a formal letter from GAIT or solicit letters from our membership.

I’d welcome feedback about this decision. My rationale is that I want GAIT’s relationship with the city to be collaborative as much as possible. I’m sure there will be cases where we will need to be firm and disagree with some course that doesn’t serve ped/bike/bus needs, but I don’t think this is it.

Anyway, the CTC (Council Transportation Committee) agenda above still refers to the Village Park Drive project, but it’s my understanding that it’s on there so it can be removed from the list of bike lane striping projects.

I plan to attend the meeting this month (5pm April 10th in the Pickering Room at City Hall Northwest). If anyone else can make it that would be a great way for us to start showing the city the depth of support for ped/bike/bus issues in Issaquah.