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Minutes 01-22-01 MINUTES OF NEIGHBORHOOD SUMMIT MEETING HELD IN THE LIBRARY PROGRAM ROOM, BOYNTON BEACH, FLORIDA ON MONDAY, JANUARY 22, 2001 AT 7:00 P.M. INTRODUCTIONS Mr. Dan DeCarlo, Neighborhood Project Specialist, opened the meeting at 7:05 p.m. and thanked everyone for attending. Mr. DeCarlo introduced Mayor and Mrs. Gerald Broening, Commissioner Michael Ferguson, Police Chief Marshall Gage, Bob Kenyon, Deputy Utilities Director, Deputy Fire Chief Steve Gale, John Wildner, Parks Director, Dale Sugerman, Assistant City Manager, Wally Majors, Recreation Director, Jeffery Livergood, Public Works Director, and John Guidry, Utilities Director. Mr. DeCarlo announced that Jeffery Livergood, Public WorkS Director,. would be giving a presentation on Traffic Calming to acquaint the neighborhoods with some of the proposed methods for calming traffic. The City Commission had a workshop on the subject in November and thought it was important to carry the discussion to the community through the Neighborhood Summit meeting. Traffic Calming Presentation Jeffery Livergood stated that he appreciated the opportunity to discuss the various methods of traffic calming with the neighborhood associations and that he expected that it would be educational for him as well. He welcomed feedback and questions from the residents. Mr. Livergood mentioned that traffic calming was a new and growing solution to traffic problems in local residential neighborhoods. It came about because some of the typical methods for controlling traffic in local neighborhoods had some drawbacks. These typical methods would be stop signs, yield signs, and speed limit signs. All of these methods require strong participation by law enforcement and all call on the citizen to obey the signs and laws. Mr. Livergood stated that basically, traffic calming was the placement of a physical roadway characteristic that altered the motorist's behavior. You can observe a traffic calming method, he said, when you drive down a street that has places for parking on both sides of the street, which constricts the roadway width, obstructing your sight and causing you to drive slower. Mr. Livergood stated that traffic calming was an essential part of a traffic management program for neighborhoods but not the only part. Traffic calming was one of many solutions used to solve problems related to traffic. One must first identify the type of traffic issue being addressed. Residents are typically concerned with the speed of traffic through their neighborhoods, the volume of traffic coming through their neighborhoods, Meeting Minutes Neighborhood Summit Boynton Beach, Florida Januaw 22,2001 and inappropriate uses of the roadway. These are the kinds of ~ssues targeted for the use of traffic calming measures. He said that traffic calming measures could also have a significant impact, not only on the flow of traffic, but in making the roadways safer for pedestrians. The pedestrians could feel safer crossing the roads and walking parallel to roads when traffic-calming devices were in place. Also, the cyclists could feel safer. They were trying now to encourage the use of public rights of way for cyclists as an alternative mode of transportation. All of the safety measures must be balanced and fine-tuned to carry traffic volume on the roadways. The roads must be shared with pedestrians and cyclists and the needs of both must be considered. Some traffic calming measures have impact on emergency service vehicles, which must be considered when designing solutions for problems. All impacts must be considered before placing a traffic-calming device. Oftentimes a traffic-calming device has the intent of diverting or discouraging traffic from a residential roadway but before placement of such a device, one must consider the issue of where that traffic will go. It is important that the solution to one problem does not create another problem. If you are diverting traffic from a residential roadway, you do not want to set it up so that that traffic must now go onto a different residential roadway. Mr. Livergood referred to his background in traffic engineering and said he was looking forward to initiating a new traffic Control/calming program in Boynton Beach. In the short term they were beginning a dialogue with the various neighborhood groups to define the problem areas, discuss solutions, and develop a process whereby the City could look at traffic related issues. The most important part of this was the participation and input of the neighborhood residents. On the City's part, objective data was being gathered that would be combined with the needs of the residents in such a way that the City could provide fair and expeditious handling of the residents' traffic concerns. Mr. Livergood gave a slide presentation detailing the various traffic calming methods and devices. The Power Point presentation is attached to the original set of minutes in the City Clerk's office and copies will be made on request. The presentation included the definition of traffic calming measures and issues that led to its use such as Neighborhood Livability, Crime Prevention, and Urban Redevelopment. He said that traffic engineers liked to rely on standards that were well defined. The standards for the design and implementation of traffic regulatory and control devices can be found in the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD). This manual is where you would find information on the regulation of the appearance of STOP signs, speed bumps and so on. The emphasis is on uniformity, which is valuable for motorists since they know what to expect when they drive from state to state Mr. Livergood also reviewed other methods such as full and half-closure of streets, one- way closures, and directional closures. Also discussed were forced turn islands, speed humps, speed tables, raised intersections, rotaries and traffic circles, roundabouts, chicanes, horizontal deflection of on-street parking, landscaped curb extensions, intersection narrowing, and chokers. 2 Meeting Minutes Neighborhood Summit Boynton Beach, Flodda January 22,2001 Speed Humps/Bumps/Tables Speed humps and bumps are the best because they work. They slow traffic down. They are the worst because they are not attractive, they cause noise, and residents complain about them. Also, people tend to speed up between them. The "table" style gives a nice smooth surface, allows for a smoother ride, and can be used as raised crosswalks. Traffic Circles Mr. Livergood commented that traffic circles were becoming more and more common but there were no design criteria. He said that smaller circles were more hazardous because people sometimes go around them too fast and, conversely, the larger circles force a car to slow down due to having to make a right turn to keep going around the circle, thus making them more effective and safer. He said that sufficient right of way was not usually available for this type of option. Chicanes When a motor vehicle cannot travel in a linear direction, it tends to go slower. Chicanes offer this positive effect; on the negative side, they are very expensive to construct. Other horizontal measures were discussed such as realigned intersections, lateral shifts, and horizontal deflection via on-street parking. Diagonal parking causes traffic to go slower because people are afraid someone will be backing out and this measure is often used in Central Business Districts. Sometimes bump-outs with vegetation are used in place of or in conjunction with on-street parking. Neckdowns and Chokers These measures involve narrowing intersections, corner bulges, curb extensions, pinch points, and midblock narrowings to name a few. They all tend to calm and slow traffic and the nice benefit is the pedestrian has a long area to cross so there is a higher safety factor. Chokers can take the place of speed bumps if the area gets a lot of emergency vehicle traffic. Mr. Livergood stated that when you narrow a roadway and achieve traffic calming and slowing, you might create a problem for cyclists. He said there were no perfect traffic calming measures, no cookbook format for any street. The choice of device or measure depends on the volume of traffic, the speed of that traffic, the roadway characteristics, the amount of pedestrians, and whether or not people are riding bicycles. The best traffic calming measures take all applicable factors into consideration. A resident of Colonial Club stated that their neighborhood had a problem with people speeding and that there had been a lot of accidents in that location. She said they even sped in the driveways. Mr. Livergood offered to speak with her personally after the meeting to get the details and he said the City would look into it. Mr. Livergood said that speed zones were established, not by what one would want them to be but under the assumption that 85% of the people who travel on a street would travel at a speed that 3 Meeting Minutes Neighborhood Summit Boynton Beach, Florida January 22, 2001 they believe to be safe for the roadway and the other 15% did not deserve a driver's license. He stated that if a speed limit were set too Iow, it would dramatically increase the calls to the Police Department for enforcement and this would ultimately cost the taxpayer much more money. He said the protection factor the Police offered was more important than the enforcement of speeding laws. Mr. Livergood also commented that speed limits were set by the jurisdiction that controlled the roadways and that in many cases in the Boynton area, streets were controlled by the County and the State. Federal Highway and Boynton Beach Boulevard, for example, are controlled by the State and they set the speed limits. Mr. Brian Edwards of Mangrove Walk mentioned that there were no sidewalks in his area and that many people had children and pets and many people were going too fast for the conditions in his area. A woman who lived on S.W. 12th Avenue near the Forest Park School also complained of buses going too fast on the street. She called the bus compound and said her complaint fell on deaf ears. Mr. Livergood said that he planned to work with the school districts, the bus companies, and the neighborhoods to establish safe walking routes, plan for adult crossing guards, and assess the priorities for sidewalks. A local realtor who had been in the area for about five years commented that the amount of growth in Boynton Beach had been staggering. She said that this over development was destroying the necessary green spaces that the area needed to allow water runoff. She said she realized the City needed to broaden its tax base but that it should consider the cost of sacrificing green space as well, alluding to the sums being spent on stormwater improvements at this time. She also mentioned roads off of Federa Highway, specifically 6th Street, where the road had been narrowed so much that two cars could not pass on it. She said that people lived here because of the green spaces. They did not want to be a Boca or a West Palm Beach and she thought the City was losing sight of that. Mr. Livergood responded that he could not address the planning issues but that it should be kept in mind that issues of street width were decided by the agency having jurisdiction over a particular street, often the County or the State. He did say that a little bit of congestion might not be altogether bad in that it would tend to slow traffic down on that street. He read that Palm Beach County was considering the approach of narrowing streets as a means of traffic control. He concluded by saying that the City was in the process of developing its traffic control program and that cost was a factor, but that the City would do its best to fix problem areas when warranted and explain why if it could not. He said that traffic calming was a great tool but that the community needed to use it along with all the other tools such as yield signs, stop signs, and enforcement of regulatory controls by the Police. A member of the audience mentioned the intersection of Woolbright and Seacrest and that the light never allowed one to "Walk", going in either direction. She asked that someone from the City check it out. Mr. Livergood asked for her name and phone number so he could respond and follow up with her. 4 Meeting Minutes Neighborhood Summit Boynton Beach, Florida Januaw 22,2001 Another person brought up the road that goes north and south next to the Senior Center and the fact that there was no stop sign there and no pedestrian crosswalk. The parking lot for the Senior Center is across the street from the Center. She believed that the law should protect the pedestrian and referred to other areas of the country where it was illegal not to stop for pedestrians, regardless of the existence of a stop sign. Mayor Broening commented that the City should address problems such as the need for safe crossing zones for places like the Senior Center and Seacrest, but he also believed that there was an implicit requirement on the neighborhoods to address the issues individually. He mentioned that some of his neighbors, who were very responsible people, drove too fast at times through preoccupation or inattention. He believed he should talk to his neighbors and that the neighborhood associations allowed this kind of discussion to take place in a non-confrontational way. Safe drivinq should be the topic of discussion on a regular basis in all neighborhood association me~tings. Mr. Livergood agreed and said that neighborhood participation was going to be an essential part of the City's traffic control program. He said the City wanted to come out to the people, meet with the associations, walk the streets with the citizens, and develop a dialogue that would allow everyone to work together to solve the problems. At times, he said, the solution was government action but that at other times, solutions came from the people themselves. Everyone had to work together as everyone wanted the same result. A person in the audience mentioned that she would like to see more widespread use of the SMART trailers to let people know just how fast they were going. She believed a lot of people just did not realize the speed at which they were traveling. Mr. DeCarlo stated that he planned to mail the minutes to all of the neighborhood associations as a benchmark to use for future discussions. Common Neighborhood Interests Mr. DeCarlo discussed the various neighborhood projects that were going on around the City and the capital improvement projects. He spoke of a bulkhead problem at Mariner's Way and that when this effort was concluded, they wanted to undertake some beautification projects there. He said they had also done a lot of work up around 17th Avenue and Ezell Hester Center on the medians and rights of way. He was happy that the Commission had funded the neighborhood projects in a way that allowed for a lot of flexibility. Mr. DeCarlo asked for questions, comments or feedback on the Neighborhood Assistance Program or on any specific neighborhood issues. Mr. Brian Miller, President of Village Royale on the Green, stated they had worked extensively with the PubliC Works Department and the Police, and that the City had been more than cooperative. They brought in FPL to evaluate street lighting, which had been upgraded. The communications with the City had been very good and he urged all the other neighborhoods to do the same and enter into a continuous dialogue on a daily or weekly basis. He said that whatever had to be done would be done and in an orderly fashion. They thanked the City for all assistance Meeting Minutes Neighborhood Summit Boynton Beach, Florida January 22, 2001 Mr. Brian Edwards spoke about issues in the INCA neighborhood. He said that the Neighborhood Assistance Program was active within INCA. He appreciated the steady pace and saw that things were being accomplished. He mentioned the garden going into place behind the Holiday House and that it was looking good. He said that requests for assistance from the Neighborhood Assistance Program were being met and at a minimal cost. From the INCA standpoint a few open issues would be traffic calming in one neighborhood and the lighting issue. He praised the City for its cooperative attitude. Mr. Edwards mentioned that often, speeding was a relative matter in that one could be going within the 25-mile speed limit and yet still be a menace to pets and children. Another woman mentioned that there were no streets and no place to put a sidewalk so people had to walk in the street and this was a great concern. They were wedged between the canal, the property, and the road. Mr. Edwards said he would like to hear more about the accomplishments of the Neighborhood Assistance Project. Mayor Broening mentioned that one of the first pro- Boynton commercials had been aired recently and this news was well received. Mr. Stephen Waldman, Vice Chairman of the Advisory Board on Children and Youth, stated that the City Commission had given their Board the responsibility of looking into what they originally called the Teen Center. He said that there had been a survey in the water bill recently and that they had gotten nearly 1000 responses. They were soliciting interested community members to join their Committee and Mr. Waldman introduced one of the members, Denise Zupo. They have called it a Committee to Develop a Boynton Beach Youth Center. The Center was not only to keep kids off the streets, but also would be a place where positive things would occur. He announced a meeting to be held in the Library Program on February 21, 2001 at 6:30 p.m. and invited all interested parties to attend, including children from 12 to 18 years of age. Ms. Zupo said she was impressed about the number of people interested in the youth of the community. She asked all the attendees to take back the Committee's message to their neighbors, families and friends. The Committee was seeking a community of knowledge sharing, feedback, and participation to help bring such a Center into being. A person in the audience praised the paramedics on the Boynton Beach Rescue team for their speedy, kind, and effective response to her in a recent time of need. Mr. DeCarlo expressed appreciation for all that had attended and the meeting was adjourned at 8:30 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Recording Secretary (two tapes)